


worth winning the losing game

by featherx



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, M/M, YuriAshe Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26418964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherx/pseuds/featherx
Summary: “So,” Hapi drawled, “he took the Pikachu in the divorce, huh?”Yuri is a waiter in Striaton City Gym. Ashe is a Pokémon breeder in the Route 3 Daycare. Now if only it were that simple.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70
Collections: YURIASHE WEEK 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for [yuriashe week 2020](https://twitter.com/yuriasheweek), a self-indulgent pokemon AU that i wrote for literally like 2 people. 3 if you count myself. hope you enjoy!!
> 
> title is from [take yourself home - troye sivan](https://open.spotify.com/track/6YndZBGmLySgsVScckWkmO?si=ulT5VzwcR_2vrZnnsSMxag)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You,” Yuri declares, “are a _fat_ son of a bitch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yuriashe week day 1: mirror/reflection/parallel & firsts  
> (you know... like the first chapter.)

“You,” Yuri declares, “are a _fat_ son of a bitch.”

Sunny gives him a dirty look and snaps something that, in Raichu-speak, probably means, “As if you’re any better, asshole!” It’s strange to think a Pokémon can curse as colorfully as any human, but Yuri’s thrown the words around so much that he’s sure at least some of his team members have caught on by now.

“Whatever,” Yuri sighs. “But you definitely need some exercise. You’ve been sitting around and snacking on the leftovers way too often.”

“Rai-rai chu,” Sunny grumbles, which Yuri decides to understand as, “Fuck you.”

The streets of Striaton City are as busy and bustling as ever, important-looking men in their crisp business suits rushing to work and trainers chattering away with each other, their Pokémon, motley crews of starters and Lillipups, toddling along beside them. It’s not hard to tell that most beginning trainers are crowding around Striaton Gym’s doors, with a sad employee doing his utmost best to keep them at bay like they’re a crowd of frenzied Carvanhas. Yuri’s just glad he wasn’t put on shift for that job—it’s always busiest this time of year, when spring brings around both cherry blossoms and a new battling season.

But of all the other jobs Yuri could have gotten, did he really have to be the one walking out to the Daycare Center to retrieve some gym trainer’s Pokémon? He’s not some errand boy, damn it. If the gym trainer themselves is sick, then surely their Patrat or Purrloin or whatever the hell it is can wait a few days. He could be in the storage room by now, sorting through ingredients and sneaking Sable a few chestnuts, or playing referee for one of the many Gym battles they’ll be having that day…

Oh, well. Yuri nods at the guard at the gate leading to Route 3 and steps out from city concrete to soft grass, Sunny scampering ahead. At least it’s nice out today, all clear skies and cool winds. The Daycare isn’t far ahead too, and even from here Yuri can already hear the loud screaming of playing children and baby Pokémon. He’ll just have to pick up that Patrat-or-Purrloin-or-whatever-it-is and head back to the Gym in time for a bagel for lunch.

“Welcome to the Daycare Center!” an employee greets. He’s facing away from the door, rummaging through some cabinets at the back of the counter, as Yuri strolls in. Sunny pauses, sniffing the air tentatively—right, he’s probably never been in here. “So sorry, just give me a second—what can I help you with today?”

“It’s cool. Take your time.” Yuri surveys the small office. There’s a waiting couch against one wall, but not much else. Probably to reduce collateral damage, he assumes, noting the room is divided in two by a flimsy fence, the right half looking like a play pen. “Hey, quit it,” Yuri mutters, glancing down at Sunny—the Raichu is uncharacteristically restless, tail standing alert behind him, his nose still twitching and his eyes wider than usual. “What’s with you? Smell a Persian around here?”

“Chu.”

“Okay. Thanks. Whatever that means.” Sometimes Yuri really wishes he’d caught a Psychic-type Pokémon to speak to telepathically, or those translators from Kalos actually work and aren’t total rip-offs. No, instead he gets a Raichu who probably wouldn’t speak to him at all anyway if Sunny knew Yuri would understand him. “You know, you—”

And that’s as far as he gets before Sunny, the fat son of a bitch, leaps over the counter and nearly bowls the poor Daycare employee over.

“ _Sunny!_ ” Yuri shrieks. “What are you—get off! Sweet _fucking_ Mew—” He bends over the counter and grabs Sunny around the middle, somehow managing to haul the Raichu off of the yelping employee. “Gods, I’m so sorry, I do _not_ know what got into him, he is so not usually like this. Are you hurt? Did he electrocute you?” Yuri turns to the whining Raichu he’s desperately hugging against his chest. “Did you electrocute someone, you little—”

“No, no, I’m fine,” the employee laughs, almost scarily good-natured, as he picks himself up. Yuri supposes he has to be, to work with both young children and Pokémon. “I’m used to energetic ones. I used to own a Pikachu myself, they really can be a handful.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still sorry, he never does shit like this, I hope you’re not—”

Yuri blinks. Stares. The employee’s facing him now, dusting his uniform off with one hand and trying to brush his ruffled, staticky hair back down.

His ruffled, staticky, feathery, gray hair.

“Plus we get a lot of young Electric-types in here too,” he’s saying, reaching out to rub Sunny between the ears. Sunny looks like he’s barely restraining himself from letting loose a disastrous Discharge attack, and the racket he’s making is beginning to grate on Yuri’s ears—though it’s not like Yuri can blame him, because if he were Sunny he’d be screaming his head off right now too. “It’s not a big deal, you really don’t have to—”

“Ashe.”

His words come to a halt. “Ah,” he says, shakily, still looking down at the counter, “y-yes. That’s my name. A-Aha, right, my nametag—er, sorry, you just sounded like—”

“Ashe,” Yuri repeats, numbly, “it’s me.”

Striaton Gym is as noisy as always, much to Yuri’s displeasure, and a Gym battle going on further inside doesn’t help things. But after working here for some two—three? is it three already?—years, he’s grown used to the sounds and the noise that it almost feels comforting. Everything here—and in the rest of Striaton, for that matter—is familiar, down to the faces of his coworkers, the potted plants placed decoratively in the corners, the patterns on the tablecloths…

But of course there’s Ashe sitting among all this familiarity, all grown-up but still with the same Pidove-gray hair and pale green eyes from ten years ago. He even smiles at Yuri the exact same way when Yuri approaches, which is somehow both terribly familiar and foreign at once.

After getting past the initial surprise at seeing each other again, Yuri had panicked and groped for something to say, which led him to invite Ashe over for lunch. By the way Sunny refused to leave Ashe’s side, Yuri’s fairly sure Ashe couldn’t refuse even if he wanted to anyway. What Yuri hadn’t predicted was that he’d be set to work as soon as he returned to the Gym, and now he’s running around serving customers and delivering orders instead of sitting down, staring at Ashe, and trying to memorize everything about him. _Is it even really Ashe?_ Yuri finds himself thinking. Perhaps he should look very close and see if he still has the same smatter of freckles on his face as when they were still children.

“So you’re working as a waiter here now,” Ashe remarks, looking around the restaurant. Sunny’s running circles around him and the table he’s seated at, which Yuri hadn’t had in mind when he demanded the Raichu get some exercise in, but he supposes it’s not that bad. “I thought you’d be more of a cook, really!”

“I am, sometimes,” Yuri admits. He sets a glass of water on the table, just to look like he’s doing _something._ “This place makes a pretty terrible restaurant, I’ll give you that. Since the Gym battles get so messy, workers quit really often. By the way, what are you getting?”

Ashe flips through the menu for approximately five seconds before Sunny clambers up to his lap and jabs a paw at, predictably, the Pikachu pancakes, which Yuri absolutely hates having to make if only because pouring such a ridiculous amount of honey and syrup on the things makes him feel violently ill. He supposes it’s only fitting it’s Sunny’s absolute favorite. “You want that? Okay, let’s get it,” Ashe agrees, way too easily for Yuri’s comfort.

Yuri sighs. “ _Must_ you? Even if you like sweets, that stuff is straight-up sickening. I say this from experience.” At least he’ll only have to look at the thing now rather than make it.

“Sunny can finish my half for me if I don’t like it.” Ashe smiles and pets Sunny’s head again, his other hand lightly squishing the Raichu’s cheeks, fingers moving almost automatically to avoid touching the electric sacs there. “How did you find him, after all these years? I thought he was…”

He trails off there, and Yuri doesn’t need to hear the unspoken word to know what it is. “Just the pancakes? How about a drink?”

Ashe is quiet for a long moment, arms wrapped loosely around Sunny bouncing on his lap, before he says, “Just the water.”

Eventually, once most of the customers are seated and served and the latest Gym challenger has walked out looking dejected, Yuri finds time to crash onto the chair across Ashe, who seems to have fed three-fourths of the pancakes to Sunny, predictably enough. “You’re still the same,” Yuri notes, unthinking, “even after all this time.”

Ashe looks up from wiping syrup off Sunny’s paws. “Hmm?”

“You used to do this all the time. Let your Pokémon eat all your food while you went hungry for the rest of the day.” Yuri rests his chin atop the edge of his palm. Ashe stares at him, bemused, over his plate. “You’d even do with my own team sometimes. I’m the one who had to go out with Sable to gather berries for you.”

“Oran berries are the best,” Ashe says softly, his eyes alight with memory. “Sometimes I still catch myself craving them.”

“Did you learn nothing from when your stomach was all screwed up for weeks?”

“That was because there was Caterpie sap all over the ones you brought back,” Ashe returns, which, damn. Yuri had been hoping he didn’t remember that. “That was when we were exploring in the power plant, wasn’t it?” he adds, smiling down at Sunny, who blinks at the mention of his birthplace. “Do you miss it there, Sunny?”

Sunny shrugs, a motion that looks extremely strange on a creature with virtually no shoulders. Probably. Yuri’s never been too interested in Pokémon anatomy—it hardly seemed like a subject he could easily profit from, after all.

Ashe’s smile fades, replaced by a carefully neutral line, so thin Yuri could reach over and snap it in half. “Yuri,” he says, and _gods,_ it’s been ten entire years since Yuri had heard his name spoken just like that, in that exact tone and voice and gentle tender softness, “how did you find him again? After what happened that day, I…”

He swallows, and Yuri thinks he’s going to trail off once again and leave the sentence unfinished, but Ashe’s gaze turns determined. “I gave up hope on ever seeing him again.”

_It’s an incredibly long story,_ Yuri thinks. “Oh, I don’t remember anymore.” _One you wouldn’t want to hear. One you’d hate me for, curse me for, want me dead for if you ever knew about it._ “I just happened to find him again after a few years passed.”

_Don’t ask where I went. Don’t ask where I went. Don’t ask where I went._

The silence must only be for a second, two at most, but to Yuri it feels much longer, long enough to stretch between the span of days, weeks, months, ten years. “Ah,” Ashe says, eventually, staring at the table and absently stroking Sunny’s head. “I see.”

Yuri would need to be buried six feet deep underground to think Ashe believes him; even Sunny is giving Yuri a look that Yuri imagines might mean, _It’s been ten years. Don’t you think he deserves the truth, after all this time?_

Yuri could laugh at the mere thought. What good has telling the truth ever been for him? Lying was how he got around. Lying had saved his ass more than once and twice and a hundred damn times when his life and Pokémon had been on the line. It’s been ten years—Ashe can live a little longer without the truth.

That evening, Yuri flops into bed as soon as he steps out of the shower, not even bothering to dry his hair. Balthus’ bed is empty, so he’s probably going to be back late after a match—Sunny is sulking on the floor, tail twitching every now and then, and Mara is waiting patiently near the window, wings folded at his sides. They’re the only Pokémon in Yuri’s team that prefer being outside of their balls at night, although Mara can hardly count if he’s never even inside the room.

With a heavy sigh, Yuri pushes himself off the bed and opens the window for Mara, who tilts his head—which is basically his entire body, being a Crobat—and trilling softly at him in what is undoubtedly a question. “What, him?” Yuri mutters, turning to look at the still-unmoving Sunny. “He’s just sulking because his trainer didn’t want to keep him.”

Sunny growls, sparks flying across his fur. It isn’t for show, that much Yuri knows—after spending years with the unruly Raichu, he’s unfortunately become more or less accustomed to electric shocks—but he can’t bring himself to be scared of him either.

Mara looks more than a little confused, but eventually just flies off into the night, wings flapping noiselessly like the killer he was trained to be. Yuri leaves the window open a crack, then slides back onto his bed and pull the covers over himself. “Come on,” he mumbles. “Ashe lives in Nacrene. You can see him whenever you want.”

“Rai,” Sunny mumbles back, with far less hostility and far more dejection.

Yuri’s inclined to agree. Before Ashe had to leave and return to the Daycare, both Yuri and Sunny insisted he bring Sunny back with him—Yuri even offered to handle the exchange of ownership as well, a process more tedious than it should be without a proper Pokédex—but Ashe had refused and said Sunny should spend time with the trainer who had actually raised and taken care of him for the past few years.

It’s strange. If Yuri were in Ashe’s place, and he’d been offered to take back one of the Pokémon he thought were gone for good… he’d say yes in half a heartbeat.

“Just go to sleep,” Yuri sighs. “We’ve got to spar with the Gym trainers tomorrow, so get some rest. Night.”

“Chu.”

Yuri drifts off to sleep afterwards, but he wakes up in the morning with Mara hanging upside-down from the ceiling and Sunny curled up in the bed next to him, just like always. Balthus is sprawled out in the bed on the other side of the room, snoring the world away. It’s familiar and comforting and maybe—maybe soon, seeing Ashe in the Daycare can be something familiar and comforting and _constant,_ too.

Yuri takes one look at the Tranquill the Gym trainer sends out and has to resist the urge to shake his head. “Go easy on him,” he whispers to Sable, whose ears twitch in acknowledgement. Across the field, the Tranquill’s trainer worries on his lower lip.

Yuri isn’t a great battler by any means—none of his Pokémon are particularly powerful or trained for competitive battle like these Gym trainers’ are. No, his were trained for a different purpose entirely, and even after almost a decade, it’s hard to completely forget three years’ worth of torturous, merciless conditioning. Sometimes Mara drops to the ground to let the electricity hurt him less, and sometimes Lamia curls up in a ball to keep pain focused on one area rather than her entire body. Even his newer Pokémon, the ones he caught in Sinnoh after everything, picked up on the similarities shared among his team quick.

“Air Cutter!” the Gym trainer shouts. His Tranquill rises in the air obediently, so at least there aren’t any problems with loyalty there, but it charges up the attack so slowly that Sable clicks her claws in impatience. She waits until the last second before digging into the ground, the Air Cutter hitting the grass harmlessly. “It’s okay, Nino!” the trainer calls. “Just stay in the air. You can’t be hit by any Ground-type moves up there!”

Yuri supposes that’s true and smart, but it’s also the most boring solution possible. He doesn’t bother shouting orders or commands—Sable has fought enough Flying-types to know what to do with them by this point. The only thing he’s unsure about is if she’s going to take her time and drag this out to make it a battle of attrition or if she’s as bored as he is and wants this over with as fast as possible.

A few handy Rock Tomb attacks later, Sable rolls back to Yuri’s side and looks up at him expectantly. Behind her, the trainer recalls his unconscious Tranquill. “Yeah, yeah, you did well,” Yuri mutters, fishing out an apple he had snuck under the other cooks’ noses and handing it over to the Sandslash. She chitters and slices the apple up into neat little slices, and, of course, offers Yuri none of them.

“That was… a good match,” the trainer grumbles, clearly not meaning the words. He crosses the field and shakes Yuri’s hand. “Do you, um. Have any tips?”

“Mm…” Yuri’s tempted to just say _no,_ walk away, and return to stuffing his pockets with leftovers from the kitchen, but he’s being paid to help train these kids, so he _supposes_ he might as well. “Your Pokémon obviously like and listen to you, but you need to work on your creativity. Flying-types won’t always be immune against Ground-types. Figuring out their weaknesses and working on covering those is always a good start.”

Once the trainer returns to where the rest of the teenagers—er, Gym trainers—are gathered, Yuri returns Sable to let her eat her apple in peace inside her Pokéball, then pretends to look surprised at the crowd that’s gathered around them. “Well now, what are you all looking at? Go on, show’s over. Unless you’d like to see more in private?” he teases, half-hiding a smile behind his perfectly-manicured hand. The crowd titters, dispersing slowly but not before a sizeable number shoot lingering glances at Yuri.

_Wow, this is a pain,_ Yuri thinks to himself, still keeping up the smile. _I want to eat watermelons today._ Apparently doing this is great for both the restaurant and the Gym’s publicity, so Yuri supposes he just has to suck it up—he can’t complain with hard money, as usual.

Yuri hadn’t planned to wait until all the Gym trainers have left the Dreamyard, walking back to Striaton City and chattering amongst each other, but he ends up being the last one as usual. Other trainers are further inside, probably veterans searching for the rumored rare Pokémon in the area or greenhorns trying to catch something to help them with their Gym battle. Yuri gives the area a wistful look—sometimes he almost wishes he’d been born in Unova instead, where maybe he wouldn’t have needed to go through so much before he’d finally landed a life approaching normal.

Then again, there aren’t any Sandshrews native to Unova. Or Pikachu. And the Woobats drove the Zubats out when they tried to migrate here. And even if there were, Yuri thinks things might have turned out the same no matter where in the planet he was born.

“That was a good fight,” someone calls from behind, “if a little fast.”

Yuri almost bolts out of the Dreamyard—he knows he can make it back to the Gym in a minute, maybe two, he’s fast enough. Instead he puts on a smile and turns around to meet Ashe’s eyes, the pale green a color Yuri’s seen far too many times in his dreams. “Didn’t see you in the crowd.”

“I get that a lot.” There’s a Cinccino sitting atop his shoulder, and it’s almost ridiculous how its gray fur matches Ashe’s gray hair. He’s smiling, but something about it doesn’t seem right. “Did you ever complete the League Challenge in Kanto? Or in this region, maybe?”

This conversation has just started and it’s already taken a terrible turn. “No,” Yuri answers, truthfully—he’d never gotten the chance to forge the completion certification. “Not here. Not anywhere, really.”

“Oh,” Ashe says, very softly. “Then, um… your mother…”

“She’s doing fine. I found a different job after…” Yuri shrugs. “You know. I jumped between work for a while, then saw an ad for this place. Nothing so extravagant.” And, in a way, it _is_ true, even if it might only be the tiniest fraction of the whole truth.

Ashe doesn’t respond for a moment, and his Cinccino reaches up to rub its stubby paws against his hair, messing it up and brushing it back down again. Does that help him relax or something? It might be the strangest form of Pokémon therapy Yuri’s seen yet, and throughout his job-hunting years, Yuri had seen a _lot_ of Pokémon therapy. “I see,” Ashe says, sounding thoughtful. “Just, well… if it was just that, it wouldn’t have hurt to tell me when you left.”

“I was in a hurry. You didn’t see the note?”

“Note?” Ashe’s nose wrinkles.

“I left a note that night.” Yuri didn’t. What would he have said? How would he have been able to explain himself? There was nothing to say, back then, nothing to explain. He thought it would have been easier to just leave without telling Ashe anything, to let the loose ends tie themselves up on their own, and Yuri was right.

Besides, it’s clear Ashe has done just fine without him anyway.

“I didn’t…” Ashe trails off, confusion written all over his face. “Or—Or maybe I did? I don’t remember anymore, it’s been so long. Well, I… I’m glad you’re alright, at least.” He smiles down at Yuri again, and this time it’s so genuine it hurts. “I thought I’d never see you again. I wanted to look for you—I thought it might have something to do with Rocket, but…”

Yuri shakes his head, which isn’t really a denial of the statement as long as he doesn’t say anything stupid. “What about you?” he asks, eager to turn the questions around. Ashe looks like he hadn’t been expecting this, judging by his surprised blink. “I know you’re working in the Daycare and all now, but what did you do after I left? I didn’t keep up with League-related news much, so.”

“It wasn’t anything special,” Ashe says, rubbing the back of his head with the most adorable of sheepish smiles. “I finished the League Challenges in Kanto and Hoenn, and I earned enough from that to help keep my little siblings afloat—you remember them, right?” At Yuri’s nod, Ashe’s smile just seems to grow and brighten more. “After Hoenn, they were old enough to get jobs of their own, so I planned to quit competitive battling. But, um, I got invited to a school in Unova under a battling scholarship, so.”

“And that’s when you started working in the Daycare, huh,” Yuri finishes. He’s taking the path back to Striaton now, and Ashe keeps pace beside him. It almost feels like they’re teenagers traveling in Kanto again, only Ashe is taller than him and therefore harder to ruffle the hair of.

“Mm, it was a part-time job when I was studying in Nacrene, and eventually I grew to like it.” Ashe reaches up and pets the Cinccino on his shoulders. It chirrups and leans into his hand, disgustingly sweet. Yuri can’t count the number of times Sunny has ever done that when Yuri petted him, if only because Sunny has _never_ done that, the ungrateful bastard. “I work as both a breeder for the Pokémon and a teacher for the kindergarteners.”

Yuri hums. “They’re overworking you. You can’t deal with two different baby species at once.”

Ashe laughs, clear and happy as the tinkle of wind chimes in the summer. Yuri hasn’t heard this laugh in ten years. “Not that much. Chilla here is great at taking care of the baby Pokémon, so she helps when I’m busy with the human children.” He motions at his Cinccino, who tilts her head and smiles at Yuri. “Archy likes to play with them too. You remember Archy, don’t you?”

“How could I ever forget the poor Growlithe you doomed with your awful naming skills? Or, no,” Yuri muses, ignoring Ashe’s spluttering, “I suppose he must be an Arcanine now?”

Ashe seems to be torn between protesting about his Awful Naming Skills and answering the question; after a moment, he finally decides on the latter. “He is. He’s still the same as how you know him, though.”

_Loyal to a fault, then,_ Yuri doesn’t say.

They walk the rest of the way back to Striaton, talking about whatever comes to mind, and Sunny perks up when he sees Ashe (his eyes slide right over Yuri, predictably enough). “Rai!” he shouts, as way of greeting, running over and jumping into Ashe’s arms. “Raichuuu.”

“Hi, Sunny,” Ashe coos, kissing his forehead. Yuri turns away, not sure if he’s jealous of Ashe or the Raichu. “Did you miss me? Sorry, I can’t take you right now, not when I still have a full team—”

“ _That’s_ why you won’t take the guy?” Yuri gawks. “Ashe, you know PC accounts are free, right? For that matter, you know you work in a _Daycare,_ right?”

Ashe doesn’t smile this time, his lips only quirking slightly upwards in a forced attempt Yuri sees right through. He brushes one of his hands against the circular scars around Sunny’s neck, the Raichu himself looking blissfully ignorant as he nuzzles his face against Ashe’s neck. “That’s true,” he allows, voice too soft to believe, gaze too far away to see. “But it doesn’t feel right. You’re the one who raised him all these years, Yuri.”

“Trust me,” Yuri mutters, “I would not miss him in the least.”

Sunny turns around and gives Yuri a look that plainly states he feels the same. “That’s cruel,” Ashe laughs.

“No, it isn’t. He’d be with you anyway, so in the end I’d still be able to see him if I wanted to.” Yuri stares down at Sunny, who glares right back. “Though I doubt that. Look, he’s totally glaring at me right now, he absolutely hates me. Hey, who fed you all those leftovers and got you this fat? Was it Ashe? Was it—”

“Yuri!” Ashe laughs, and he sounds so like _himself,_ like they’re still in Kanto, walking along some grassy path or a city street, talking and jabbing at each other, just two kids taking on the League Challenge together, that Yuri’s heart threatens to collapse in on itself.

But—no, reminiscing on the past, thinking of what could have been—Yuri had done far too much of those already. He clears his throat and returns to the matter at hand. “So is that really why you won’t take him back? He adores you, you know.”

Sunny emphasizes this with a little “chu!” and waves his short paws around, batting Ashe’s cheeks and chin.

Ashe shakes his head. “I can’t,” he murmurs. His hand is on Sunny’s neck again, fingers atop the faint scar marks, and this time the Raichu quiets as if in realization. “Not until I know what happened to him first.”

_Ah._ So he hasn’t been blindly accepting Yuri’s vague answers as to what he’s been up to for the past ten years, then. Yuri supposes he should have expected this—Ashe may look the part of honest and gullible, but he was born and raised in the slums of Saffron City just like him. Yuri was a fool to think a few years of living in relative comfort could have changed any of that.

But what is Yuri supposed to do—tell the truth?

“If you don’t want him, just say so,” Yuri says, attempting for a more lighthearted tone as he stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Anyway, I gotta get back to the Gym, it’s almost my shift. See you around, Ashe. Drop by for a meal again sometime?”

“O-Oh, uh, okay,” Ashe stammers. He sets Sunny back on the ground but Sunny doesn’t move, just stands there and stares up at Ashe, his expression indiscernible. “You’re right, I should get going too—um, see you, Yuri.”

Yuri watches him leave for the Daycare. As soon as Ashe is out of sight, lost in the sea of other passersby, Sunny’s tail wraps around Yuri’s leg and tugs hard. “Rai,” he growls, like he’s blaming Yuri of something.

“What?” Yuri grumbles, jerking his leg away and walking towards the Gym. After a moment’s pause, Sunny follows on all fours. “He doesn’t need to know, alright? The truth would only hurt him.”

“Rai-raichu.”

“It doesn’t matter. I did what I had to back then.” Yuri kicks a pebble, glaring at it as it skitters across the ground and slides into the gutter. “You should know that better than anyone.”

For the past two or so years he’s worked in Striaton, Yuri had never visited the Daycare despite it being only a few minutes’ walk away from the city. This is partly because there had just never been much of a need, and partly because Yuri just does not like loud noises, which is something both human children and baby Pokémon are experts at producing. Yuri had been hoping that visit a week or so ago could have been the first and last time he’d be stepping foot in the area.

Unfortunately, fate seems to take an immense amount of pleasure in toying with him, which is why Yuri is trudging along the dirt path to the Daycare for the _second_ time today.

“Hey, I’m back,” he calls as he pushes the door open, only to see a complete stranger standing behind the counter. Of course. Is he some sort of idiot? Ashe isn’t the only employee in the whole Daycare, holy shit, Yuri is a _mess._ “Uh, sorry,” he mutters, scratching his neck. “Is Ashe here? Ashe Ubert?”

The employee looks thoughtful. “Ubert? Yeah, he’s out in the field right now.”

“Cool, great, thanks.” Yuri hurries out of there before he can embarrass himself any further. Gods, he is going to throttle Sunny for this.

The ‘field’ is just a small area at the back of the Daycare that they use for Pokémon to play and run around in, much like the playground for the children to the side of the building. Yuri picks his way through the throng of nipping Lillipups and hissing Purrloins until he’s standing just a few ways behind Ashe, who’s crouched down to coo at a young Blitzle. “Hey, Ashe.”

Ashe whirls around, the smile already on his face widening into a grin. “Yuri!”

“Wow, don’t think anyone’s ever been that happy to see me.”

“Don’t be silly,” Ashe says, as if it really isn’t so hard for him to imagine. Yuri almost scoffs at the very thought. “Hold on, Sunny’s playing with the kids… Sunny! Yuri’s here!”

Yuri shakes his head. “Now he’s never coming back. Look, I don’t mind dropping him off here now and then, but is this going to be a daily thing? Because I didn’t sign up to feel like a single parent dropping my kid off at a nursery before going to work every morning.” It’s not like he can refuse, either; Sunny may be bound by the rules of the Pokéball that keep Pokémon from hurting their trainers, but he’d just threaten to Thunderbolt everything in Yuri’s apartment to a crisp, so it’s basically the same thing.

“We have a service for automatic delivery via the PC system, but it’s a little… costly,” Ashe says, voice dipping in hesitation near the end, which is how Yuri knows he’s trying to be nice and downplaying a ludicrous fee. “I’ve been careful not to let my coworkers see Sunny so they don’t insist on you paying for his stay here, but it’s probably only a matter of time. He’s not exactly easy to hide…”

Yuri huffs. “I can pay. I’m not that poor.” Although he definitely wouldn’t be able to pay _everyday,_ he still isn’t about to let Ashe look down on him.

“Oh, no, that’s not it,” Ashe says, shutting down that train of thought. He probably understood what Yuri hadn’t said, Yuri thinks with an internal sigh. “If anything, I should be paying you. Sunny’s better with kids than I thought. Look, over there!”

Yuri follows where Ashe points, and almost chokes on his spit when he sees a small gaggle of children surrounding a very familiar Raichu, who is lying on his back and letting them rub his belly, long tail waving happily in the air. “Holy hell.”

“I guess he likes the attention,” Ashe says, sounding fond.

“He looks like an idiot,” Yuri points out.

“Don’t be mean. Come on, let’s go get him back.”

Yuri would be happy to let Sunny sit there for the rest of the week, but Ashe is tugging on his wrist, and Yuri can’t help but let himself be pulled along. Sunny perks up at the sight of both of them, much to Yuri’s surprise, and jumps up with an excited squeak into Ashe’s arms. “It’s almost dinnertime, you three,” Ashe says, bending down to let the kids pet Sunny’s head one last time. “Head back inside, alright? And don’t take too long!”

They giggle and chatter among themselves, too loud and fast for Yuri to follow, before they scamper off into the nursery beside the Daycare. “Man,” Yuri sighs, “so you have to deal with kids day in and day out? I’m never complaining about my job again.”

Ashe looks amused. “It’s not so bad, you know. They’re good kids—or we try to keep them from turning into bad ones, at least. Since you’re here, Yuri, do you mind helping me round up the rest of the Pokémon?”

It sounds like a headache waiting to happen, but Yuri shrugs and says, “Yeah, alright,” because he might as well make it up to Ashe if he won’t make him pay for having Sunny around. The field isn’t too big, and Yuri’s had plenty of practice rounding up all sorts of unruly Pokémon—he’s had plenty of practice in all sorts of things, honestly, if the two years of working odd jobs is any evidence.

Sunny perches atop Ashe’s shoulder while Ashe goes around coaxing Pokémon out to follow him, like a Hypno luring its dazed victims in a trail. Yuri braces himself for a tough job, but the Pokémon actually aren’t even all that bad—most of them are just shy, like the Deerling curled up in a bush or a Woobat quivering up in the branches of the tallest tree. They’re kind of cute, if he’s being honest—it’s been a while since Sable was a baby. “Wish my Pokémon liked me as much you do,” he mumbles at a Petilil nuzzling his ankle. “I swear, those guys are just using me for the food.”

“Lili,” the Petilil says, which is not very helpful but Yuri will take anyway.

“So you _are_ good with baby Pokémon after all,” Ashe remarks, a little grin on his face when he returns to Yuri’s side. Sunny is still hanging off of him, though now the Raichu has been joined by other smaller Pokémon, like a Pidove sitting atop Ashe’s head, its gray plumage matching his hair. “I thought they’d get scared of you and run off.”

“What do you think of me, Ashe? Am I a Ghost-type or something? You’re awful mean. Look,” Yuri says primly, lifting the Petilil up into his arms, “this little guy is smart. I bet he can tell I’m a damn decent trainer.”

“That’s a girl,” Ashe tells him. “All Petilil and Lilligant are female.”

“…I knew that.”

Ashe doesn’t look convinced, but he _does_ look entertained, like Yuri’s a cute little circus Seel bouncing a ball on its head. “They’re pretty hard to find outside of Unova, so if you haven’t been here long, it’s not surprising you wouldn’t know. But… _have_ you been in here for a while?” he asks. The question sounds innocent enough, but Yuri doubts Ashe isn’t cunning enough to frame it as such. “I think I would have seen you at least once if so.”

There’s no reason to lie about this, as far as Yuri can tell, so he shrugs. “It’s been about two years now, more or less.”

Ashe is silent, probably doing mental calculations in his head. “I never really thought I’d move out of Kanto,” he eventually brings up, voice thoughtful. “Probably because moving abroad sounded, well, expensive. It’s not that bad here, but I think I’ll want to head back someday and see if I can live there again.” He pauses. “What about you, Yuri?”

“I wonder,” Yuri mumbles, the Petilil in his arms nudging at the sleeves of his jacket. It wouldn’t be a matter of money—it would be a matter of if he’d be able to stomach living anywhere in that country again, especially Saffron. The possibility of running into people he might know is just the icing on top. “Maybe. Haven’t really thought about it much. Moving around was always better than staying still when we were kids, and I guess I still sort of think that way.”

Ashe smiles, but there’s no mirth in it, just quiet sadness that tells Yuri everything he needs to know: this is still Ashe, his Ashe from back then, and age hasn’t dulled the haunted darkness in his eyes one bit. “Yeah. I—”

And then his smile falls, giving way for a confused expression. “Yuri, what’s that on your… arm…?”

“What?” The Petilil has inched his sleeve up to just above his elbow, and Yuri gently pries the Pokémon off of his shoulder. There’s a stray leaf from its body sitting on his wrist, and he flicks it off to let it fall to the grass. “Sheesh, the kid’s shedding, Ashe. Is that normal for her kind or—”

“Not that.” Ashe’s voice is wobbling, his eyes wide and more frightened than Yuri has ever seen him. “Above your elbow. That… Isn’t that…”

Yuri realizes it a second before it happens, but he vastly underestimated how fast Ashe can move—“No, hey, _Ashe,_ ” he protests, taking several steps backwards, narrowly avoiding Ashe making a grab for his jacket sleeve. “Ashe, calm down. It’s just a tattoo I got while I was in—”

“Don’t _lie_ to me, Yuri,” Ashe snaps. The uncharacteristic vehemence in his words stuns Yuri long enough for Ashe to get a good grip on his sleeve and pull it upwards—and Yuri’s not stupid enough to think he can lie his way out of this any longer the moment Ashe’s eyes land on the black, curling ink on his arm.

Yuri remembers when he had gotten this—Kanto, sixteen years old, trembling and terrified and trying, desperately, to pretend he wasn’t. The tattoo parlor in Celadon had just been one of the many safe houses they had back when they were at their prime, and when the man at Yuri’s side introduced him to the clerk as a _new recruit,_ he’d been led into the backroom, where all the furniture and decorations were stripped away and the only light came from a single faulty bulb.

He remembers not liking the design: the head of a one-eyed Meowth, its coin chipped and cracked, its mouth curled in a sneer to show off its fangs. Almost ten years later and he still hates it all the same.

Ashe drops his arm like the tattoo had burned him. “Tell me this isn’t true.”

“Ashe—”

“ _Tell me!_ ”

Yuri can’t remember a time when Ashe had ever yelled at him like this, his expression both furious and desperate, fists balled up at his sides as if getting ready to throw a punch. The Pokémon around them are edging away, retreating into the nearest hiding spots—except for Sunny, who’s leapt down to stand between the two of them and squeak rapidly. It doesn’t matter—even if either Yuri or Ashe could understand him, his words would fall on deaf ears still.

It would be easy to lie, Yuri thinks. It has always been easy to lie, while the truth always tasted like lead on his tongue, something for him to force down and swallow back up until it was dissolved in the stomach acid and Yuri could pretend it no longer existed. Lying, on the other hand, always tasted sweet.

But this is Ashe, and Ashe has never made things easy for him. Ashe has never lied to Yuri, not once, and while Yuri’s usually one for foul play, trying to fool him now wouldn’t feel fair.

Yuri drops his arms back to his sides. “It is.” He doesn’t look up to see Ashe’s face—he can’t.

“You… Yuri… Then, that day,” Ashe breathes, “when you left in the night… you didn’t leave a note, did you?”

“Ashe, I can ex—”

“No.” Then, louder, harsher, “ _No!_ Get out of here. I—I can’t believe you, I—”

When was the last time his chest hurt this much? Yuri thought he had grown past the need for a heart, thought it had simply crumbled away and left his rib cage a hollow thing after all that he’d been through, all he’d had to do. So why does listening to Ashe yell at him, treat him like the dirt under his shoe, hurt worse than knives in his gut? “I can’t just leave,” Yuri tries to argue. “I can tell you what happened. I—”

“I said _leave,_ ” Ashe demands. One of the Pokéballs at his belt is beginning to shake back and forth restlessly, as if syncing in to Ashe’s own emotions, and judging by how old and battered the model looks, Yuri has a feeling he knows which of Ashe’s Pokémon it is.

Sunny is still in between them, tugging at Ashe’s pant sleeve with his short paws, probably trying to get him to calm down. He turns around to look pleadingly up at Yuri, and Yuri imagines what he might say if he could speak: _Hurry up and tell him everything,_ maybe? _Hurry up and apologize already,_ perhaps? Those are both things he should do, certainly. Maybe if Yuri explains himself, Ashe will understand. Maybe if he apologizes, Ashe will forgive him.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Yuri’s played enough games of chance over the years that he’s grown sick and tired of all the possibilities, especially when his winning probability is anything less than a hundred percent.

He turns around and runs. Sunny doesn’t follow, and neither does Ashe. In the end, he’s the same coward he’s always been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really wanted to have yuri to have a liepard, but... he's allergic to cats and dogs...
> 
> pokemon teams (in order of appearance; links = nickname origins):
> 
> yuri  
> \- [sable](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sandslash_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (sandslash)  
> \- [lamia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamia) (arbok)  
> \- [mara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_\(folklore\)) (crobat)  
> \- sunny (raichu)
> 
> ashe  
> \- [archy](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Archy) (arcanine)  
> \- [chilla](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Cinccino_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (cinccino)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Chu-chu.” Sunny slumps against the wall. Then he starts waving his paws around. “Chu-raichu-chu. Raichu! Rai-raichu. Chu!”
> 
> Yuri stares at him. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but I have no idea what you’re saying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yuriashe week day 3: estrangement/reunion & trust
> 
> omg... thank you for the kudos & comments i was genuinely expecting this to get like 5 hits at most and nothing else... hope you enjoy this chapter!!! it sheds a little more light on their shared past, though not everything just yet :)

When Yuri was eighteen years old, his team was absolutely steamrolled by some blank-eyed trainer with an Espurr, a Pokémon Yuri had never seen before and had therefore badly underestimated. They’d been camping out in the Silph Co. building in Saffron City at the time, and Yuri had been looking forward to looting the place for things to sell off when _she_ stepped in and looked him right in the eyes.

“Oh,” he said, in the middle of grabbing some nice-looking laptops out of the cart they were plugged in, “you’re not one of us.” He sent out Sable, foolishly assuming that would be the end of it. It wasn’t, but the end came quick anyway, when all his Pokémon went down in less than two hits.

“I’m having a hard time,” she said, after Mara, still a Golbat then, went down in a harsh Thunderbolt attack. “Could you show me where the president’s office is?”

Yuri returned Mara’s smoking body and backed up against the wall, but the trainer was only getting closer, getting nearer, and there weren’t any windows in this part of the building. “What do you want?” he snapped. He had a gun strapped behind his back, but the thought of actually using it on someone scared him to shameful bits.

She frowned, the slightest downwards curve of her lip. “I just said. The president’s office. The elevator isn’t working.”

“Y-You…” Yuri swallowed, steadied his voice. “I don’t know either. Okay? You won already. Leave me alone.”

A pause. “Okay,” she agreed, so suddenly Yuri almost thought she was taunting him. Her Espurr leapt up to sit on her shoulder and she turned away, dark blue hair a complete mess. Yuri watched her walk back out into the corridors, followed by the sound of rapid footfalls that was probably someone hurrying up the staircase just around the corner. _Thank the gods,_ he remembers thinking. _Backup can take care of her._

Except it wasn’t backup. Yuri had stayed hidden in the room, because he wasn’t about to give up on the laptops just because of one lone trainer, when he heard a painfully familiar voice saying, “Byleth! I found the key. I think we can use the elevator now!”

“Oh, good,” the trainer—Byleth—said. “I was getting tired. Ah, I took care of the Rocket members on this floor.”

“You’re always so strong,” Ashe praised, and Yuri could almost see his face, smiling and sparkling and probably looking up at this Byleth person, unless he’d defied Yuri’s expectations and had a growth spurt in the two years he hadn’t seen him. “I saw the floor directory earlier say there was a healing machine on the ninth floor. We should—”

His voice cut off, followed by the ding of the elevator. Yuri waited another second before peering out of the room, but there was no one else outside, only the floor indicator on the elevator blinking _7… 8… 9_ back at him.

It was his first encounter with the battling prodigy Byleth Eisner (or one of them, at least). For the longest time, it had been his last encounter with Ashe, too.

In his five years as a member of Rocket, Yuri had never particularly aimed to rise through the ranks—he was offered a position as executive, but he’d politely refused, recommended someone else, and requested a slightly better paycheck in exchange. He’d been partnered up with the three other members who joined the same time he did; the four of them looked out for each other, covered their weaknesses and complimented their strengths. In those five years, he likes to think he’d been strong, powerful, ruthless. Invincible.

That, of course, was false. Yuri lies to everyone, but not as much as he lies to himself.

“Sooo,” Balthus says, through a mouthful of cheeseburger, “he told you to leave, huh? Tough.”

Balthus always has had the impressive ability to sum up every situation in one or two choice words. “Yeah.” Yuri stares down at the five Pokéballs in his hands—Sunny had stayed with Ashe, and Yuri doesn’t blame him. If he were in the Raichu’s place, he’d have done the same. “What do you think I should do, Balthus? Open to suggestions right now.”

Balthus finishes off his burger, thinks it over for a grand total of three seconds, then asks, “Well, what do _you_ want to do, boss?”

“That’s a question, not a suggestion, last I checked.”

“Yeah, but you know I’m no good with this sorta stuff.” Balthus shrugs. His Timburr, one of the new Pokémon he’s been training for his underground matches, munches noisily on its fries. “You wanna hear what I think anyway? I don’t think you _really_ wanna just up and leave him, ‘cause then you wouldn’t be asking me for help.”

He has an annoyingly good point. When did Balthus develop critical thinking? Yuri sighs and rests his chin on his palm, idly watching Balthus grin and pat his Timburr’s head. “You’re right,” Yuri mutters. _But I don’t understand why I don’t want him to leave._ “But I don’t know what to do anyway.”

Balthus gives him an assessing look. “You’re not usually so hesitant. Why not just go for it and tell him how you feel?”

“You make it sound like this is as easy as a love confession.”

“Wait, it’s _not?_ ”

“ _No?_ ”

Balthus scratches the back of his head. “Well. Huh. Could’ve sworn you were acting like a schoolgirl in love for a minute there.”

“I was _not._ ” Was he? He definitely wasn’t, right? He had just walked in the apartment, taken a long nice shower, and laid on his bed for almost half an hour until Balthus walked in after one of his battles and had asked why he was sulking. And… well… okay, maybe it _looked_ like it, but that isn’t the case at all. Yuri shakes his head. “Anyway, I can’t just… go for it, like you said. He doesn’t even want to see me, much less hear me talk.”

“Okay, no problem.” Balthus unwraps another burger. How many of those did he buy from the fast food restaurant? “Wait it out ‘til he’s calmer and then confe—I mean, explain yourself. It can’t be that big of a deal, can it?”

Yuri flops onto his bed with a world-weary sigh. He’d only told Balthus that Ashe had found out he was a previous member of Rocket, nothing else—particularly why Ashe hates Rocket so much. If he’s being honest, a part of him wants to hate Ashe and complain that this is absolutely unfair treatment, that Yuri had done what he had to do in the past to make a living, that Ashe, of all people, should understand what he’d done and why…

But he can’t. He doesn’t think he’d be able to hate Ashe if he tried, and maybe that’s the reason why he had never been able to pull that gun out on anyone, in all those five years.

“Yeah, okay,” he mumbles eventually, even though Balthus probably isn’t expecting an answer anymore. “Thanks. I actually feel a bit better now, surprisingly. Are Hapi and Constance in their room or are they still busy with work?”

“Mm, I think Constance was working on more of her language notes. Hapi’s probably with her.” Balthus shudders. “Wish I could help, but I haven’t opened a book since I dropped outta high school. Hey, maybe you should ask them for their thoughts! They’re the ones with actual love lives, ya know.”

“Once again, this is not about my love life.”

“Whatever you say, boss. I’ll be going out in a bit again for another match, by the way!”

Yuri hums. “Alright. Be safe.” Balthus works a number of part-time jobs in the day, but most of his money comes from nightly, underground Pokémon battles that are on this side of illegal. Yuri himself has never been able to understand why people love competitive battling so much—taking on the League Challenge back in Kanto had just been one in a long list of sources of income, after all—but as long as Balthus can help pay the rent, he’s not complaining.

If any of his Pokémon were thrown into a battle, Yuri muses, they’d treat it as life-or-death unless told otherwise. Only Sable would wait for instructions first, if only because she once knew life as a League Challenger.

Yuri sighs, burying his face into his pillow. He doesn’t regret what he did, and he doubts he ever will, but he can’t deny that a lot of things could have gone much, much better all the same.

On the outside, Saffron City was the Kanto region’s metropolis—the tenth most populous city in the world, touting two whole Gyms and the Magnet Train station, along with several other businesses, both big and small, enough that Saffron essentially controlled the region’s economy. Enormous work had been put into making sure getting to its surrounding cities and towns would be easy, even without Pokémon for protection, and to top it all off the main office building of Silph Co. was located there, like the place really needed any more noticeable landmarks.

On the inside, it was a shithole, something little Ashe and Yuri had learned while scrounging on the streets and slums for their one meal of the day.

When Ashe was thirteen and Yuri was sixteen years old, they finally got cleared to take on the League Challenge—paperwork was hard when hundreds of trainers swarmed the applications office the morning the battling season began, and the only way two street kids could get in was to threaten one of the security guards at knifepoint. Probably not the most legal way, but it worked, and they pretended they were brothers so Yuri’s mother could act as Ashe’s guardian too.

“Now you two be safe out there, alright?” Mother had fretted, on their very first day as official League Challengers. “I know you’re doing this for your younger siblings, Ashe, and you’re doing this for the both of us, Yuri, but that doesn’t mean you have to push and shove your way through every fight.”

Ashe nudged Yuri with his elbow. “That’s not me.”

Yuri elbowed him back. “ _You’re_ the one who suggested the knife thing.”

Pokémon battling was one of the easiest ways to earn money, even as a kid, especially as a League Challenger—signing up was thankfully free, but maybe only half of the challengers ever actually made it to the League and beat the Champion, and even less continued on to make a professional battling career out of themselves. It helped that all Pokémon Centers had streamlined the process of sending money back to family, too. No Pokédex, admittedly—those were privileges only for the rich kids to enjoy—but Ashe had snatched a cell phone off an unassuming office worker, and sharing the free Pokédex app would have to do for the both of them.

They took on Celadon Gym first—Ashe had no problem with Archy, still a Growlithe then but as enthusiastic and eager as ever, while Yuri struggled far worse with Sable, a timid little Sandshrew who took some warming up to. Then it was Saffron Gym, Vermilion, Cerulean. Ashe caught a Caterpie that had been nibbling on their fruits, named her Mothra, and cried like a baby when she evolved into a Butterfree. Yuri earned the respect of a Jigglypuff after it heard him singing, and he befriended a Horsea after untangling it from a discarded fishing net.

It had been fun, at first. It was challenging, and they lost their fair share of battles, but they always learned from their mistakes and they grew to understand each other and themselves more. Yuri supposes that’s one of the reasons so many trainers take on the League Challenge every year—it might be just a little bit overhyped, but it’s fulfilling, and even his cynical self can acknowledge how it helps teenagers learn and grow whether on their own or with other people.

So it was probably just really, really, really bad luck that Ashe and Yuri set out on one of those life-changing journeys the same year Rocket was beginning their rise to prominence.

After Cerulean they decided to poke around in the abandoned power plant—there were rumors of some ultra-powerful legendary Pokémon in there, and young as they were they felt invincible, all of five Pokémon between them. In the evening they stopped at the Pokémon Center beside Rock Tunnel for the night, and Ashe slumped onto one of the two beds in their shared room. “I can’t wait for tomorrow,” he’d said, giddy with excitement. “Do you think we’ll find a Pikachu? I heard they’re really rare, but I also really want one!”

Yuri shrugged. “I dunno. It’s a power plant, so maybe. There’ll be all sorts of Electric-types there.”

“Yeah, but… _Pikachu,_ ” Ashe insisted, which was how Yuri knew he had been thoroughly swayed by the Pikachu propaganda. Pikaganda, if you would. “What if there aren’t any when we get there? I bet they’re more active at night, when there are less trainers around—”

“Quit worrying about it and go to sleep, dummy.” Yuri bonked him on the head. Back then he’d still been tall enough to do that without worry of retaliation. “You can go Pikachu-hunting tomorrow.”

Ashe had tossed and turned for almost an hour, but eventually his breathing deepened and he fell still. Yuri waited a little longer to make absolutely sure, then slipped out of bed, grabbed his Pokéball belt, and hurried out of the Center without waking Ashe. At first he worried it would be difficult to move around in the dark, but Tremper, his Horsea, had decent night vision and helped him swim despite the lurking Tentacools, and then he realized his worries were for naught when he saw the power plant alight with electricity.

The Pokédex app told Yuri that Pikachu were difficult to find because of their sensitive hearing, so he plunked down behind a large generator and waited, Sable beside him, until a relatively small Pikachu wandered nearby, munching happily on a Pecha berry. Compared to having waited almost two hours for it to walk by, catching it was almost laughably easy. “Here,” Yuri said, holding the Pokéball out to Ashe in the morning. “Wasn’t too hard.”

Ashe looked confused. “What are you—” Then his eyes threatened to bulge out of his face. “No! Yuri, no way!” He didn’t bother waiting for a response—he tossed the Pokéball down, let the Pikachu circle his feet and sniff him a few times, before hugging it close to his chest. “You shouldn’t have!” Ashe insisted, but the grin on his face told Yuri the lost sleep had been worth it.

Yuri waved a dismissive hand. “It would’ve been hard if you tried to do it without a Ground-type. These guys can hit hard. So what’ll you name it?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I mean… I thought about this all night, but now that I’m looking at—” Ashe checked the Pikachu’s tail—“him, I can’t decide…” He rubbed the Pikachu between his ears, smiling when he chirruped and leaned in to his touch. “You’re so cute! I’m going to give you the best name ever. How do you feel about… Sunny?”

“ _That’s_ the best name ever?” Yuri gawked, but judging by Ashe and Sunny’s matching grins, he supposed it was to them.

They didn’t find the rumored ultra-powerful legendary Pokémon in the power plant, but there were a number of discarded items like Pokéballs and Potions that Ashe and Yuri collected as fast as they could before the few other trainers exploring with them could notice first. They were on their fourth badges, but they weren’t so arrogant that they thought they could simply take on Gym after Gym without stopping to train up their Pokémon, so they decided to venture into Rock Tunnel.

“Apparently this place is really good training for both you and your Pokémon,” Ashe said, reading off a brochure he’d gotten from the counter of the Pokémon Center. “Full of Rock and Ground-types, though… all my Pokémon are going to have a hard time.”

Yuri grinned. “Isn’t that a good thing? You’ll be able to _really_ train ‘em up. What say we split up when the road forks? It’d be too easy if you just borrowed Sable or Tremper every time you had trouble.”

“You’re on!”

They only had their one stolen cell phone between them, but Ashe insisted Yuri take it in case of emergencies, as Archy’s superior sense of smell could locate anyone anywhere. From there on it wasn’t too bad—Sable learned how to dig through solid rock, there were plenty of other trainers to battle against (and pickpocket, if Yuri could tell they weren’t giving the right amount of money), and there were a few League-sponsored rest stops throughout the tunnel where Yuri and his Pokémon could catch a break.

“You’re pretty good, kid,” someone remarked, when Yuri manipulated a battle in his favor and Rou, his Jigglypuff, defeated the opponent’s Graveler. He turned around to face a tall, dark-clothed man, a Parasect skittering around next to him. “You a League Challenger?”

Alarm bells went off near-instantly. Yuri assessed the situation as best as he could—he didn’t have any Pokémon who could potentially take down that Parasect in one or two hits, and there were more Pokéballs hanging off the man’s belt. It’d be wise to run now and lose the stranger in the cave’s darkness, but… “Yeah,” he replied, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Rou floated in the air next to his head. “What about it?”

“You doing it for the cash, huh?” He grinned, and Yuri did his best to pretend it didn’t send chills down his back. “Caught you lightening up some trainers’ pockets back there.”

Yuri froze. Had he been too obvious? Rou was excellent at distractions, by virtue of being cute, round, and pink—stealing a few extra bills from those who wouldn’t miss it was almost too easy when they were busy cooing over his Pokémon. “I-I don’t…”

“Come on now, no need to lie.” The man raised his shoulders in a conspiratorial shrug; his sleeve rode up, and Yuri caught sight of black, curling ink on his skin, a tattoo of a Meowth head. “I’ve been there, y’know. And this isn’t me threatening to get you arrested. In fact, it’s the complete opposite.”

That piqued his interest, despite himself. “What do you mean?”

“We could use someone like you. Ever heard of Rocket, kid?”

The man had a way with words, weaving them together into a web specially constructed to lure idiot teenagers who didn’t know any better. He offered him double, triple, quadruple the amount of money Yuri could earn by just defeating Gyms, described the inner workings of the corporation, selling rare Pokémon off to collectors in exchange for riches beyond Yuri’s imagination. “We’ve been growing, little by little, over the years,” the man said, “and now we’re almost at the peak of our careers. What do you say?”

Yuri thought of Mother, working day in and day out to provide for him. He thought of Ashe’s younger siblings, subsisting on one, two paltry meals a day. He thought of Ashe himself, who hoarded books even if he barely knew how to read, who always took a few moments before he could look away from the schools they passed by in cities, who shared his convenience store lunches with his Pokémon and only ever ate their leftovers.

It sounded too good to be true, but by then Yuri had already been trapped in the Ariados’ web. “What do I have to do?”

They had a safe house in Lavender, and their headquarters were in Celadon. “Meet me back up by the entrance of Route 8,” the man instructed. “Either get there early or not at all—we leave for Celadon soon as it hits midnight. We got a deal, kid?”

Yuri nodded, silent and solemn and brimming with nervous excitement. It had seemed amazing, back then, to be part of something bigger than he was—his head had already begun to cloud with thoughts of the things he would do as soon as he had the money. A new house for Mother, in the nicer part of Saffron, where she could strut out and show off designer clothes and accessories to all the other women; three, four, five meals a day for Ashe’s siblings, so they could gorge themselves all they like; every single book Ashe stopped to look at the cover of through the windows of bookshops, and then some.

It was late afternoon when he emerged from Rock Tunnel into Route 10—the sun was beginning to dip beneath the horizon, and there were fewer trainers milling about outside as compared to the ones still in the cave. Yuri was tempted to head on to Lavender Town himself, but he and Ashe had promised to meet at the exit. What would Ashe say, actually? Would he congratulate Yuri? Would he want in with him, too?

Yuri waited, waited, waited. Rou sang beside him, and passing trainers tossed coins at their feet. The sun was sinking, slowly but surely, and then it was just as darkness had fallen that Ashe burst out of the cave exit. “Ashe!” Yuri exclaimed. “What took you so—”

The rest of his words died on his tongue. Ashe’s cheeks were wet with tears, eyes rimmed an angry red. Archy was standing stoic at his side, not barking and jumping around like usual, and Mothra was perched on Ashe’s shoulder, wings quivering in obvious terror. “Yuri,” Ashe whimpered, “Yuri, I—I—”

“It’s okay.” Yuri gathered Ashe up in his arms—back then he had been so small, so easy to frighten, and at sixteen Yuri felt like he needed to protect Ashe from everything. “Let’s get you to town. Are you alright? Can you walk?”

“Sunny,” Ashe gasped out, and Yuri’s heart stuttered in his throat. “T-They—They took Sunny, they stole him, they—”

“Ashe, Ashe—calm down. Ashe, I’m here.” Passing trainers were staring, but Yuri could hardly bring himself to care. He let Ashe cling to his arms, bury his face in his shirt and dampen it with his tears, but they could only stay out there for so long. “Come on. Let’s get to a—a Center first. We can report it to the police from there, okay?”

It felt like they sat in the lobby of the Pokémon Center for forever until the police finally came to take Ashe’s testimony; by then Ashe had managed to calm down a little, though he couldn’t seem to stop shaking, and Archy growled at anyone who came too close and wasn’t Yuri. “He was… a little taller than you,” Ashe said, haltingly, to the police, “and he wore all black. A-And he had a beard, I think, I don’t know, it was dark—”

“Get to the point, kid,” the police grumbled, and Yuri felt anger flare up in him in a way it hadn’t in a long time. “How did it happen?”

“I-I was battling another trainer with Sunny—my Pikachu—and then—when I won, he went up to me and said I fought well, and he was giving me tips on how to train Electric-types, and then—” Ashe swallowed, his clenched fists shaking atop his lap. “It… happened so fast. After I returned Sunny, his Rattata—I think it was his, anyway—it jumped up and snatched my Pikachu’s Pokéball off my belt. M-Me and my Pokémon tried to give chase, but then he sent out a Rhydon, and… we couldn’t… I c-couldn’t…”

The officer sighed, scribbling something down on his notepad. “But I—I saw something!” Ashe added, leaning forward, desperation laced in his words. “The thief had a tattoo on his arm—it looked sort of like a Meowth…”

The realization strung Yuri’s lungs up together, sharp wire puncturing through and staining silver with blood.

“Alright,” the officer said, though he’d already pocketed both pen and paper. He stood up, stretched his arms over his head, and nodded decisively like he had done anything to help whatsoever. “Sounds like your regular Pokémon poacher. You stay in town a lil’ while longer and sit tight, and we’ll look around for the guy, yeah?”

“What?” Ashe squeaked. “W-What if he gets away? I should search too!”

“And what do you mean, _regular poacher?_ ” the officer’s partner asked, sounding bewildered. “We’ve been getting more and more reports about incidents like this happening, and all the suspects have the same tattoo on their arm. This is the work of Rocket, isn’t it?”

“Calm down, you two,” the officer snapped. “We’ll take care of it, so we’ll just be on our way now, alright?” He strode off without bothering to hear Ashe out any longer, and his partner bid the two of them a hasty goodbye before running after him. It was late at night, and most other trainers had already retired upstairs to the cramped Center rooms, leaving Ashe and Yuri alone in the lobby.

Silence had never felt this thick, bore this heavy down on Yuri’s shoulders. Ashe stared down at the tiled floor. Archy was uncharacteristically silent beside him. “Rocket, huh,” Ashe muttered, saying the word like he was testing out how it sounded in his voice.

“They sound like a criminal organization,” Yuri guessed. The man he had spoken to earlier hadn’t made it sound that way at all. “Stealing Pokémon and whatnot. Ashe, I… I’m sorry. I should have been there.”

But Ashe was already shaking his head before Yuri had even finished the rest of his sentence. “It’s not your fault, Yuri. It’s mine. I was… too weak to even…” He was sniffling again, visibly blinking back tears, and Yuri gently wrapped his arms around Ashe’s shoulders once more. “You caught Sunny for me, and I… just let him get s-stolen like that, I should have—I should have been better or stronger or faster, shouldn’t have—Y-Yuri—”

“Shh, it’s okay. They’ll find him. It’s not your fault.” Yuri carded his hand through Ashe’s uneven, ruffled gray hair, soft as feathers, keeping the motions calm and rhythmic until Ashe stopped shaking. “Let’s get some sleep,” Yuri suggested, softly. “Tomorrow… will be a new day.”

He couldn’t say _I’ll help you look for him—_ how could he, if that might be a promise he wouldn’t be able to keep?

Ashe sniffed. “Right. Okay. T-Thank you, Yuri. You’re right—tomorrow… tomorrow.”

Yuri expected Ashe to spend another few hours awake and restless in bed, but unexpectedly enough he fell dead asleep as soon as he hit the blankets. Yuri, on the other hand, couldn’t bring himself to move just yet—the clock ticked nine, ten, eleven in the evening, but all he could do was stare up at the room ceiling, running his choices over and over again in his head.

He was no fool—he knew perfectly well that he wasn’t suited for a life in a professional battling career. The League Challenge was only a means to an end, and he had told himself that as soon as he found a better opportunity, he’d take it and drop the Challenge in an instant—he wouldn’t lose anything, except maybe the time it would take to line up in the applications office to remit his trainer ID. And here was that better opportunity, staring him right in the face, promising him money and riches and a _chance._

On the streets of Saffron passersby would spit on the ground and tell Yuri to stay away from them, to keep his stealing hands out of their pockets. But the man, the Rocket member, had looked at him and saw skill, saw potential.

 _Ashe would never forgive you,_ a voice whispered in his head.

Yuri kicked the blankets off himself and slipped on his sneakers. _And so what?_ he reasoned, not sure if he was more furious at himself or at the world. He shrugged on his backpack, clipped his Pokéballs on his belt, left with neither noise nor letter. _I don’t need his forgiveness._

(Almost a decade later and Yuri doesn’t think he’s ever tasted a lie as bitter as that.)

Unlike the other cities they’d been to, Lavender Town was eerily silent at night—aside from the Center, the only lights on were those at Pokémon Tower. There were barely any street lamps either, bathing the cobbled streets in darkness. It made getting to Route 8 unnoticed easy, at least; Yuri found the man from earlier standing there, along with three other trainers who looked, surprisingly enough, his age.

The man nodded down at him when he moved to stand beside the other trainers. “That’s all of you, then. Let’s go.”

There were no fancy speeches, no encouragement nor threats, just the man signaling for them to follow him. Yuri remained a step behind the other trainers at all times, watching for any signs of hostility or danger, but they looked much the same as him—nervous but trying to hide it, desperate but trying to pretend they weren’t. Yuri had seen their expressions in the mirror far too many times to count by now.

Instead of passing through Saffron to get to Celadon, the man led them into an underground path, one Yuri recognized from dozens of trips through here to lose the authorities trying to capture him. They emerged into Route 7, the dirty, grimy outskirts of Celadon City, then into Celadon itself, all flashing lights and chattering, late-night crowds. Their headquarters were located in the basement of the largest casino in the Game Corner street, and Yuri wasn’t the least bit surprised to realize it was run almost entirely by Rocket members, judging by the Meowth tattoo on all of their arms.

The man had mentioned having connections in all sorts of places, with all sorts of people. Could that include the police as well? Had it been why the officer earlier hadn’t seemed the least bit concerned with helping Ashe out? It made Yuri’s blood boil, but at the same time he also felt _relieved,_ at the knowledge that someone in the police would be on his side if something ever happened, and then he was just mad at himself for being thankful for something as fucked up as that.

The headquarters weren’t empty, but it was quiet all the same—all voices were muted and hushed, despite the heavy steel walls ensuring no one outside the basement would hear them, and Rocket members hurried back and forth, always staring straight ahead and never faltering in their movements. Machinery hummed constantly in the background. No one paid Yuri and the other three trainers any mind.

“New recruits?” a woman in the room they entered asked. She was lounging on the couch, playing with a Pokéball in one hand. The man nodded, and she smiled darkly as she observed the four of them standing in a line. “Aw, how cute. You all nervous?”

None of them answered, which Yuri figured was the wisest choice.

The woman looked bored, but shrugged and stood up, shoving one hand in her pockets. “Fine, be that way. Alright, listen up: you’ll be getting your tattoos tomorrow, but other than that and one more thing, there’s no rite of ceremony or initiation or whatever the hell street gangs have. It’s a waste of time we could spend training you newbies up. Instead,” she said, smile turning into a grin, “prove your commitment to us by releasing your Pokémon.”

Yuri froze in place, heart hammering a dent in his chest. Was this a set-up all along? Had they lured gullible, impressionable teenagers with the promise of money just to take their rare Pokémon and sell it off to others?

What he was thinking must have showed on his face, because the woman took one look at him and barked out a laugh. “This isn’t some sorta scam, if that’s what you’re thinking. Your Pokémon are _League_ Pokémon—they wouldn’t last two days as Rocket Pokémon, the way we do things around here. Now, what are you all standing around looking all surprised for?” She held her hand out, waggling her fingers. “Hand ‘em over, or else we’ll take them ourselves.”

The redhead trainer moved first—she stepped forward and handed over four Pokéballs without a change in her neutral expression, and then the other two trainers followed soon after, but Yuri’s mind was racing with possibilities. They weren’t releasing their Pokémon themselves—they were giving them away to Rocket. There was no way they would quietly release them into the wild and let it end there.

Selling rare Pokémon to collectors—that was one of their main sources of income. But what if the Pokémon weren’t rare? What if the Pokémon were species as common as Rattata or Pidgey or Sandshrew?

“Well, kid?” the man asked, and Yuri blinked, brought back to the present. “Just you left. Unless you’re having second thoughts?”

Yuri plastered on a wane smile and shook his head. “Nothing like that. But—” He stepped forward, unclipping Rou’s and Tremper’s Pokéballs off his belt and dropping them in the woman’s hand. Sable’s was tucked surreptitiously in the inside of his coat. “If we don’t have any Pokémon, what are we going to do?”

The woman tossed the Pokéballs to the man and clapped her hands. “Good question, and don’t worry about it—we’ve got plenty of better, stronger Pokémon specially bred and trained specifically for the job. Perfect for newbies like you four, who’ll probably screw up on your first few missions.” She reached into a bag that had been propped atop the couch armrest and retrieved eight Pokéballs of varying models, then handed over two to each of them. “You can take a look later, but for now we need you rested up for tomorrow. The bigger we get, the busier, too, eh?”

“Let’s go,” the man said, clearly unamused. “I’ll show you to your rooms, but they’re just for tonight—these aren’t dorms, you’re not to live here permanently. Come on.”

As soon as Yuri stepped into the cramped room, he made sure the door was locked before collapsing on the bed and curling into a small, tight ball. It had been a few months since his Pokéball belt had been this light, this empty—tomorrow he’d have to pretend he had just caught Sable somewhere instead of having had her as his first Pokémon, or else… Yuri didn’t even want to know what they might do to both him and the Sandshrew.

Rou loved singing with him, and there was a Moon Stone in Yuri’s bag that he’d been planning to surprise her with. Tremper didn’t like fighting, but he’d been excited when Yuri told him about the beauty contests they hosted in Hoenn and Sinnoh. Now they were probably going to be sold off to collectors, and the next time they left their Pokéballs would be somewhere entirely different. Yuri hadn’t even been able to say goodbye, just like with Ashe.

He dug out the two Pokéballs the woman had given him earlier and released the Pokémon within. They were perfectly still and silent when they materialized: an Ekans and a Zubat. Both fairly common, but Yuri knew not to underestimate them—the woman had no reason to lie about their capabilities to carry out Rocket-related jobs. Yuri held his hand out for the Ekans to flick its tongue against and for the Zubat to sniff, but they didn’t otherwise react like how a newly-obtained Pokémon might. Yuri swallowed—he’d have to introduce Sable to them sooner or later, but he’d play it safe and do so at least after he’d established the lie among other Rocket members.

“You two have names?” he asked, though he seriously doubted it. Still no reaction. Yuri sighed. “Fine, okay. You, Ekans, you’ll be… Lamia,” he decided, “and Zubat is… Mara.” The names sounded a little similar, like they could be partners, and Yuri allowed himself the smallest smile. “Let’s work well together, alright?”

No response. When they’d first been caught, Rou had puffed her cheeks—so her entire body—out and demanded she listen to him sing again, while Tremper had tried to show his gratitude by doing a little dance in the water.

Yuri swallowed back something hot and tight down his throat and returned them to their Pokéballs. He flopped back into bed, tugging the thin blankets over himself, and tried not to think about what Ashe might think tomorrow morning.

Yuri squints down at the Raichu sitting forlornly on a chair. “Get off. That’s for paying customers, and you look broke to me.”

“Rai.”

“Why are you back so soon? Thought you’d be jumping at the chance to have some more time with Ashe.” It’s been almost a week after the incident, but just saying his name still gives Yuri a headache. “Did he kick you out or something?” he asks; he seriously doubts it, but he might as well.

Sunny shakes his head, still looking miserable. “Raichuuu.”

Yuri doesn’t have time for this. “If you’re trying to get me to talk to him, don’t bother. I’ve got better things to do, like my job.” He’s lucky they haven’t opened up for the day yet, though it’s only a few minutes until they do so. Trainers are lining up outside for their Gym battles, probably those with morning appointments, and Yuri would really rather stay out of that if he can. Having a Raichu wandering around the restaurant might be decent publicity, considering their species isn’t too common in Unova and Sunny is fat and cute, but Yuri really doesn’t feel like taking care of him right now.

Uncharacteristically enough, Sunny just hops off the chair and trudges to the backroom without another squeak. Yuri watches after him with a frown, but then a coworker is opening the doors to the restaurant, and he gets swept back up in work.

He only has free time in his lunch break, which is all of half an hour he spends sitting in the narrow alley out back, picking at a cheap convenience store packed lunch he bought this morning. Sable is munching on a melon slice while Sunny sits atop a trash bin, tail drooping down the side and flicking lifelessly every now and then. “Will you quit sulking?” Yuri eventually sighs. “I don’t even know _what_ you’re sulking about.”

“Chu-chu.” Sunny slumps against the wall. Then he starts waving his paws around. “Chu-raichu-chu. Raichu! Rai-raichu. Chu!”

Yuri stares at him. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Chuuu…”

“Look,” Yuri sighs, finishing off the last of his cold lunch, “if you came here expecting me to—to go back to Ashe and, I don’t know, explain myself to him or something, then I’m sorry, but you’re going to be very disappointed. He wouldn’t want to listen to me even if I tried.”

“You’re right,” someone says, and Yuri nearly leaps a foot off the ground, “but now that I’m here, I might as well hear what you have to say.”

“You—” Yuri scrambles to his feet, dropping the empty plastic container on the floor. Ashe is standing at the mouth of the alleyway, dressed in plain, bland clothes instead of his work uniform. _How did you find me?_ is at the tip of his tongue, but he swallows that question back down when he sees a very big, very familiar Pokémon just behind Ashe. “Ah,” Yuri says dryly, inclining his head towards the growling Arcanine, “Archy still remembers my scent, huh?”

Ashe shakes his head. His expression is inscrutable, and Yuri is almost proud of him—after how many years, the man finally learned not to show his emotions on his sleeve. “He followed Sunny’s scent, not yours.”

“Oh, well. Forgive me for assuming.” Yuri chances a glance behind him—Sable would usually tense up at every unfamiliar (and sometimes familiar) stranger, but she’s completely at ease, still nibbling away at her melon slice. Even after all this time, she doesn’t register Ashe as a threat. “Did you come here to pick this runaway Raichu up? Go ahead and take—”

“No.” Ashe steps forward. “I… I’m going to ask you something. And I want you to be honest.” He swallows, takes another step forward, frowns when Yuri backs away in turn. “Yuri.”

“Yes.”

“Did you really…” He worries on his lower lip. “When Sunny got kidnapped. Were you…”

Yuri realizes his question before he even says it, and the very _thought_ of something like that happening is ludicrous. “No! What the hell, Ashe? I’d never do that!”

“But it was—it all happened in one _day,_ ” Ashe presses, expression twisting into something desperate. “Sunny was stolen, and then _you_ disappeared in the middle of the night! No note, no clues, nothing—you left _nothing_ behind that day. I thought—” His voice cracks, breaks, shatters like glass. “I thought they might have taken you, too.”

“Ashe…”

“I searched _everywhere._ ” He shakes his head. “I was sure Rocket kidnapped you, too, for some reason. And—it’s just—first it was Sunny, who you caught for me, and then you yourself. It’s like you never existed.”

There’s no way Yuri can lie himself out of this one. But what was he expecting anyway—it’s _Ashe._ Yuri’s never been able to lie to him. Maybe that’s why he didn’t leave a note that night, because he wouldn’t have been able to tell him the truth but he wouldn’t have been able to feed him a lie, either. “Ashe,” Yuri says, slowly, “it was… while we were separated, in Rock Tunnel. One of their recruiting agents found me and gave me the whole spiel. I didn’t catch Sunny just so I could steal him away from you less than a day later.” _How could you even think that of me? Am I just that despicable?_

Well, clearly, if the thought had wormed its way into Ashe’s head at all.

“But you still left.” Ashe inhales, exhales. “I reported you as a missing person, but the police didn’t listen to me. I wanted to chase after Rocket myself, but I didn’t want the same thing to happen again. Do you—Do you have _any_ idea,” he snaps, fists clenched at his sides, “how _hard_ that was? I didn’t know what to do!”

“Ashe—”

“I thought you were gone forever. I thought it might have been my fault somehow. I thought—I thought maybe you went out and tried tracking Rocket down or something, but they hurt you and—and—and now you tell me you _joined_ them?” Ashe shouts, his voice bouncing off the walls on either side of them. Yuri means to take another step back, but his limbs feel locked in place, his feet glued to the ground. “After they stole Sunny? After you _knew_ what they did for a living?”

“Oh, great,” Yuri scoffs, “so in the end this all comes back to your righteousness, doesn’t it, Ashe?”

“I— _what?_ ”

Yuri throws his hands up in the air. “It’s all black and white to you. You’re on the side of good, and Rocket’s on the side of bad. You never think about how most of the members are just people trying to get by, too?”

“That doesn’t change the fact that—”

“That they hurt others?” Yuri cuts in. Derision has never tasted this acidic in his mouth. “I’m not excusing that. But _we_ were hurt too. Sorry if this comes as a bit of a shock, but not everything is just one or the other!”

He’s not sure why he’s doing this—maybe it’s just the tension finally getting to him, or the way Ashe is making this out to all be _his_ fault and his alone when it _isn’t_ and never has been. “Should I have left a letter, Ashe?” Yuri mocks; it’s his turn to step forward now, but Ashe doesn’t back away, just stares at him like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Should I have told you all my reasons and listed them down like a grocery list? I didn’t want to hurt you more than you already were! I thought if I disappeared, you could forget about me sooner and go on with your life. Obviously,” he adds, sneering, “you did.”

“I thought you were _dead!_ ”

What happens next is too fast to comprehend—there’s a blur of orange and then suddenly Archy has nearly bowled Yuri over, missing him by inches, embers flaring around his bared fangs. Yuri stumbles back with a yelp, just in time for Sable to leap in front of him, her claws flashing under the sunlight. “What are you—Ashe!” Yuri shouts, backing up against the trash bins behind him. “Call him off!”

Ashe opens his mouth to speak, his own expression a mix of confused and shocked, but whatever he says is drowned out by the low, threatening snarl Archy lets out—Sable responds with a swipe of her claws, not close enough to actually hit the Arcanine but certainly close enough to serve as a warning. “Sable, don’t,” Yuri hisses. She may have the type advantage, strategically speaking, but fighting Ashe and Archy is the last thing he wants to do right now.

Sable glances behind her to look at him, and Archy takes that chance to lunge towards her, jaws open for what Yuri recognizes as a Fire Fang—he curses and digs in his pockets for Sable’s Pokéball, but belatedly remembers he had left his belt under the restaurant counter, and then he’s not thinking at all when he dives to shove Sable out of the way—

Electricity crackles in the air, and the heat from the Fire Fang dies immediately. Yuri turns around, opening one eye to see Archy standing just above him, growling and twitching furiously. “Sunny?” Yuri exclaims, stupidly—the Raichu’s tail is standing straight in the air, the way it always does when he’s just performed an attack.

Archy disappears in a beam of red light, and Yuri looks up to see Ashe standing a few ways away, the old, battered Pokéball in one shaking hand. “I’m so sorry,” Ashe whispers, voice trembling. “I didn’t… I didn’t command him or anything, I swear. I would never. Are you hurt, Yuri?”

“I’m fine. Sunny paralyzed him before anything could happen.” Yuri swallows—that had been the closest he’d come to certain injury in a long time. Would he even have survived that attack? “But now I guess I know how you feel.”

“Yuri—”

“Archy’s always been in tune with your emotions, hasn’t he?” Yuri asks. “It’s things like that, Ashe. You didn’t mean to do it, you didn’t _want_ to do it, but you knew you would anyway. Do you get it now?”

He doesn’t mean for his voice to come out sounding hard and numb, but it does, and he can’t bring himself to care. Sable and Archy had used to be the best of friends, back when they first started out as trainers and they caught their starting Pokémon together. Have they really grown that far apart, changed that much, that the two are willing to attack each other? Even Sunny had acted to help Yuri, and Yuri can’t remember a time Sunny had ever bothered showing he cared about him.

Ashe doesn’t respond—he’s staring at Yuri instead, green eyes wide, shoulders tensed, fists clenched. Yuri swallows back what would have been more parting words and turns away, Sable at his heels, as he reenters the restaurant backroom. Sunny slips in before he closes the door.

It isn’t fair. They were the same—they were both kids born in the darkness of the street alleys, dressed in rags and left to die by the gods. They both learned how to steal, how to distract a passerby long enough to snatch their wallet, how to run for just as long as they needed to lose the police and their Growlithes. They both had to grow up too fast, too soon, to provide for their families. So when had they changed so much, become so different from the other?

No, Yuri thinks, they’ve always been different. Ashe has always been better than him—better at Pokémon battling, better at stealing, better at running. Ashe has always been nicer, kinder, everything Yuri isn’t. So what about Yuri? Why isn’t _he_ the person others want him to be? Why didn’t _he_ complete two League Challenges? Why didn’t _he_ get offered a scholarship at a university? It’s simple—he’s worse. He’s second-best. It’s always been that way, from when Ashe had handily won their first Gym battle with his trusty starter and Yuri had struggled to get Sable to even listen to him. Ashe is the one who had helped take down Rocket in Kanto, and Yuri’s the bad guy in this story for wanting to get his mother out of the slums.

Where—when—did Yuri go wrong?

He still has a few minutes before he has to get back to work. Yuri crouches down to face both Sable and Sunny, though the latter looks dejected. “Either of you hurt?” he asks, stroking Sable’s forehead. Sable shakes her head, her quills rustling noisily, and Sunny doesn’t respond, though he looks fine. “Thanks for helping out there,” Yuri sighs, standing back up. “That could’ve been dangerous. I didn’t have either of your Pokéballs, and Archy… well.”

“Chu,” Sunny mumbles. It sounds like he might be trying to defend Archy, if incredibly reluctantly.

“Yeah, yeah, I know it wasn’t really his fault. That dog’s always just acted depending on Ashe’s emotions.” Yuri shrugs, trying to go for a casual air and probably getting a sullen one instead. “Still, though, if that’s what he really wants, then…”

“Ra—Raichu!” Sunny protests. _You can’t!_

“Don’t try to tell me what to do now. Look, thanks for the help back there—you’ve never done that, like, ever, so that sure was a first,” Yuri admits, “but I know it’s pointless to try and talk to him now, after everything. You can head back to the Daycare anytime you like. Maybe I’ll send your Pokéball to him via PC system or—”

“Rai- _chu!_ ” Sunny cries, apparently agitated enough that sparks fly from his cheek sacs. Yuri takes a cautious step back—it’s been a while since Sunny has electrocuted him, whether accidentally or on purpose, and he’d rather not go through that again. “Rai-raichu!”

“What’s all the noise back there?” someone—a coworker—snaps. “Quiet down! Customers aren’t here to listen to arguments!”

Yuri’s sorely tempted to tell whoever that is to shove a frying pan up their asshole, but that’d be unprofessional and he’s not looking to get fired from here just yet. Then again, maybe it’s about time he move to a city as far away from here as possible, if Ashe won’t leave first. Mistralton sounds pretty good this time of the year… “I changed my mind. Stay in the back with Sable and do _not_ touch anything,” Yuri orders, poking Sunny’s nose. “I’ll get you to the Daycare later after work, but I’m not talking to him again, got it? I don’t want a repeat of what just happened.”

Sunny wrinkles his nose, looking extremely displeased, but finally relents with a sad “chuuu…” He follows Sable towards a small area at the back where the two of them are used to staying in, along with a few other of the coworkers’ Pokémon, and Yuri imagines he’ll sulk there for the rest of the day.

Yuri exits the backroom just in time to hear the sounds of battle deeper inside the restaurant. He leans against the wall, sighs, and tries to push himself back to regular work mode, but somehow it doesn’t work quite as well as always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- can you tell i really like non-linear narration?  
> \- yup, fbyleth is the protagonist/player character in this universe. mbyleth... well... that's a story for another day. literally
> 
> pokemon teams (in order of appearance):
> 
> yuri  
> \- [sable](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sandslash_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (sandslash)  
> \- [lamia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamia) (arbok)  
> \- [mara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_\(folklore\)) (crobat)  
> \- sunny (raichu)  
> \- [rou](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Jigglypuff_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (jigglypuff; released)  
> \- [tremper](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Horsea_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (horsea; released)
> 
> ashe  
> \- [archy](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Archy) (arcanine)  
> \- [chilla](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Cinccino_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (cinccino)  
> \- [mothra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra) (butterfree)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after Yuri joined Rocket, they were taken down. It should be easy enough to guess who defeated their leader. Here’s a hint: it wasn’t Ashe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yuriashe week day 5: robbery/heist & promise  
> (i don't actually adhere to the themes much at all, surprise surprise)
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE LONG COMMENTS...!!! i really was just writing all this for myself so i'm glad you guys enjoy it 🥺🥺
> 
> this chapter is a little longer than usual (it's 10k lol) but unfortunately not much actually happens whoops

Two years after Yuri joined Rocket, they were taken down. It should be easy enough to guess who defeated their leader. Here’s a hint: it wasn’t Ashe.

When Byleth defeated Giovanni in the Viridian Gym, destroying their last and largest source of income after she had handily ruined just about everything else they had going for them, Yuri had thought, long and hard, what he was supposed to do then. Byleth had enlisted Ashe’s help to take them down during the Silph Co. incident, which meant Ashe was, at least, still alive and kicking, complete with his grudge against Rocket. Maybe if Yuri revealed himself to Ashe now, Yuri could try and pretend he had been held prisoner by Rocket for some reason, and then things could go back to the way they were.

At the time, he and his team had been hiding out in Pewter City—dangerous, considering the city’s Gym leader had a nose for sniffing them out, but they hadn’t had much choice—when the news of Giovanni’s fall, and thereby Rocket’s disbandment, reached them. At the time, he had been paralyzed by indecision. At the time, there had still been a spark of hope in him, that last desperate wish to return to Ashe’s side and fall in step beside him like nothing had ever happened.

“We have to get out of here fast,” Hapi was saying, just barely audible over the ringing in Yuri’s ears. “Police are going to be blocking off the region borders in minutes. Any suggestions?”

Hope. It was such a cruel thing.

Yuri inhaled, exhaled, stood up and plucked a Pokéball off his belt. “Johto is closest. Everyone got at least one flier?”

There was no time to think after that—bringing Mara out and following the route to the Tohjo Falls were all decisions made purely on instinct. By the time he was thinking again, they had knocked out the security guards around the Falls and were stepping over the border line separating Kanto and Johto. “I doubt anyone’s got photos of our faces,” Hapi was saying, her Flareon Chilly trotting alongside her, “and the trainer who took the leader down probably doesn’t care about us stragglers. We should be fine here for a while.”

Balthus crossed his arms over his chest. “But not for long, unless we lay real low and the news ‘bout Rocket dies down.” He turned to Yuri, tilting his head. “What do we do now, boss?”

Yuri pulled himself together enough to scoff. “What are you asking _me_ for?”

“Well, you _were_ the one who suggested we go here, in case you forgot,” Constance said, her tone as matter-of-fact as ever, “and you _are_ still our leader, Yuri.”

“Like hell I am. Did you hear the news or did you all just follow me here like a pack of blind sheep?” When the three of them only stared at him, Balthus unaffected, Constance unamused, and Hapi patient, Yuri groaned and had to resist the near-overpowering urge to stamp his feet like a petulant child. “Fine. Fine! Let’s go find other Rockets first. There have to be more of us who fled here.”

They flew over New Bark and Cherrygrove as fast as possible—small towns may have meant smaller chances of anyone recognizing them, but unlike other Rockets, Yuri had a strict policy against stealing from those who would badly miss it. They stopped in Violet City, marginally bigger and with significantly more department stores for Constance and Balthus to snatch clothes out of for disguises, while Yuri nabbed a Pokégear off the richest trainer who passed by so Hapi could analyze the map.

“Goldenrod,” she eventually declared. “Johto’s biggest city, and it’s got an underground. We’d be idiots not to check there.”

Their communications were a mess. Burner phones were stolen and discarded just as quickly. Kanto numbers refused to be loaded into the Pokégear, so Yuri dropped that, too. They had dinner in a rundown diner somewhere on Route 32, spent the night in the lower floor of Union Cave, and woke up when they heard the wings of Zubat rustling overhead as they settled in for the morning. They sent their fliers out, and Yuri stared down at the landscape of Johto from above as Mara carried him through the skies.

As Hapi expected, there _were_ Rockets already hiding out in Goldenrod’s shady, shifty underground tunnel—most of them were from an infiltration squad assigned here months ago, possibly in anticipation for this exact scenario, and they had more or less decent control over Goldenrod’s largest department store as a source of income, if pitiful considering their past profits. They snagged the easiest jobs possible, and after that it was mostly a blur of retail work.

Days passed. Yuri wasn’t sure if the department store was doing particularly well that season or if his well-practiced winks and smirks helped sell even the least successful products. More Rocket members, Kanto fugitives, trickled in, many of them leaving soon afterwards to serve as info gatherers. Giovanni was dead, Giovanni was in hiding, Giovanni had disappeared—everything went in one ear and out the other. As far as Yuri was concerned, Giovanni meant nothing to him now—he would earn enough money to get back to Kanto, to Saffron, and then maybe Mother and Ashe would both be there, waiting, welcoming.

“We managed to sneak back into one of our old hideouts, y’know, the one in the Sevii Islands,” a grunt reported, a little over a month after Yuri first arrived. “Police haven’t found it yet, it looks, since we still got all our stuff there and the place hasn’t been touched so far. We’ll need more people if we wanna move all the important shit, though.”

Archer, only head of the Goldenrod branch at that time, nodded. “Very well. Bring all the Psychic-types you think you will need; if not humans and other Pokémon, cross-regional teleportation should work on items. We will discuss how to handle whatever you bring back afterwards.”

“Yes, sir!”

They borrowed Constance’s Kadabra, among others, and passed the movements off as new products for the department store being shipped in. Yuri was tasked with sorting through each new arrival, Lamia flicking her tongue out over each box of odds-and-ends to make sure there was nothing dangerous first. Most of the boxes’ contents were wads of hard cash, expensive trainer supplies like Ultra Balls and Full Restores, and products manufactured in Rocket warehouses like the special Pokéballs that could catch trainer Pokémon—Yuri noted everything down, feeling vaguely like he had been demoted to inventory work.

Then a new box arrived, this one filled with Pokéballs of all sizes and models, and Yuri’s hands faltered bad enough that he nearly dropped the whole thing to the ground. Lamia hissed in what sounded like concern; Yuri mumbled a reassurance and picked himself up, shakily reading the label on the side. _POACHED. SELL IN: CELADON._

Celadon’s black market for Pokémon was one of the most lucrative in the world, largely due to how easy it was to hide and disguise illegal activity there under the lights and sounds of the Game Corner street. They were perhaps best known for the Eevee trade and how they had virtually commodified the poor species and its evolutions—Hapi’s Flareon was one of the many rejects, assessed by an expert as soon as it hatched from the egg and then tossed into one of the many cramped pens, formerly apartment units, when it became clear it wasn’t strong or special enough to be shoved in a cage and auctioned off.

Yuri swallowed. Two years, yet he had never caught another Pokémon and actually kept it on his team—it was that fear from the very first day he joined Rocket, when he had given his Jigglypuff and Horsea away to be sold to gods-know-who and he’d never even gotten to say goodbye. These Pokémon were going to end up with the same fate. Maybe…

“Leclerc!” someone snapped near the entrance of the department store basement; Yuri startled back to the present, and belatedly realized there were already two other boxes waiting for him. “What are you spacing out for? Get back to work!”

What Yuri would give to shove these boxes into their mouth. “Yeah, alright,” he replied instead, and began hurriedly sorting the Pokéballs out.

It had been years since Sunny had first been stolen—there was no way he would still be in any of these Pokéballs, not when Pikachus were as elusive and difficult to catch as they were. Most likely he had already been sold to the highest-paying collector. And yet, and _yet,_ if Yuri could just do one thing right…

They finished moving everything that night, just before their usual dinnertime; as soon as they were done, all fifty-something Rocket members who had made their way into Johto (and hadn’t gotten themselves arrested back in Kanto) crammed into the department store basement, pushing spare tables and chairs around to furnish their makeshift dining hall. “Check this out,” someone sitting by the table next to Yuri’s said, “I got myself some pretty neat Pokémon from the Sevii Islands haul.”

“Yeah? What are they?”

“Scyther, Ditto, Ninetales… They’ve even got a bunch of starters mixed in there, can you believe it? Probably the work of Viridian branch, I hear they’re always lying in wait around Route 1 for idiot trainers just starting out to pass by.”

Their companion whistles appreciatively. “Not bad, not bad. I should take a look in there myself later, then. Had to get away from some police back in Fuchsia and I had to leave my Vileplume behind to slow ‘em down. Not a huge loss, really, the thing was dumb to hell and back, but now I don’t got any better Grass-types. Reckon a Venusaur would do alright?”

Across Yuri, the spoon in Balthus’ grip creaked dangerously. Yuri shook his head. Balthus sighed and set his bent spoon down in disappointment.

Another Rocket member came hurrying over, dropping onto a third chair to join his friends. “Get a load of this! Today’s my damn lucky day, fellas!”

“What now? This better be good.”

“Look!” He shoved a Pokéball in their faces. Yuri took a bite out of his tasteless dinner and pretended to look very preoccupied with chewing it. “It’s a Pikachu. Label said it was stolen off some League trainer, like, not even a _day_ before the poor kid caught it, and it’s only been let out once since. The thing’s practically still wild!”

Yuri froze. Balthus’ bent spoon was starting to look incredibly tempting right now.

One of the members chortled. “Seriously? Why not go for an Electabuzz? Magneton? You really had to grab the cute little yellow rat, huh?”

“Come on, man, it’s a _Pikachu,_ I’m not letting any old idiot get their hands on it. Take a look!”

Yuri whirled around at the brief flash of red light, and—and, logically enough, he knew there was nothing to distinguish Sunny among every other Pikachu. He hadn’t been with Ashe long enough for Ashe to adorn him with ribbons or other accessories, and he didn’t have any noticeable battle scars or other significant features to differentiate him from others his species. In fact, Sunny was as perfectly average as a Pikachu could get, neither too weak nor too strong, too small nor too big.

And yet, when Yuri met the eyes of the Pikachu that materialized out of the Pokéball, he knew, somehow. This was it. This was him. There was an old saying about how a trainer never forgot a Pokémon they caught, no matter how long it had been since they first met, and in that moment Yuri regretted never putting as much stock as he should have in that belief.

Sunny stared at him, motionless, expressionless. There was a collar around his neck, one Yuri recognized as an infamous grounding collar many Rockets used to control their more unruly Electric-types. It stifled the Pokémon’s electric attacks, reinforced again and again with each new model that came out, to the point that even the gods would have trouble dealing with the restraint.

So, predictably enough, Sunny’s eyes flashed gold right before he screeched and let loose a Discharge attack strong enough to snap the collar clean in two.

Yuri could barely get Sable out of her Pokéball fast enough—she stopped the sprinting Sunny in her tracks just as he would have smashed into Yuri, coolly ignoring the electric sparks that fizzed out when they came in contact with her claws and hide. Sunny was snarling, vicious in a way Yuri had never seen on other Pikachu before, and glaring right at him.

What was Yuri supposed to do, in that situation? Even now, several years after it had happened, he still thinks about it at night. Should he have spoken up, said Sunny belonged to him? Should he have pretended he didn’t know Sunny at all? If he had said something, done something different, would anything have changed?

In the end, he hadn’t been able to say anything, do anything. The Rocket member stopped fumbling with the Pokéball and returned Sunny.

It was a regular Pokéball, the standard model, red and white. Indistinct. Ordinary. Just like any other. So why could Yuri remember, frighteningly vividly, how it felt in his hand when he first threw it in the abandoned power plant to catch one wandering Pikachu?

“Sorry about that, dude,” the Rocket member apologized, actually sounding sincere. The rest of the people in the basement were all staring, muttering amongst each other—for once, Yuri didn’t care about what they were saying. “You saw that thing, it had a grounding collar and everything and it seriously _broke out_ of it, I think it was probably defective—shit, anyway. You hurt anywhere?”

Yuri shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, great! But, man, your Sandslash is _awesome,_ it didn’t even blink. Alright, well—” The member waved an awkward goodbye and returned to his seat, chattering away to the other two, but Yuri didn’t feel inclined to listen in anymore, or stay in here any longer. He pushed his plate away, stood up, and left the basement, ignoring his partners asking after him.

Goldenrod Tunnel functioned almost as well as any other street aboveground—there were stalls, vendors, hawkers all trying to sell their wares and services, none of which were entirely legal. They’d been slowly selling poached Pokémon through the market here, and despite it being nowhere near Celadon City’s level, the income combined with their sales from the department store was enough to keep them comfortably afloat. Yuri’s dream to earn enough and leave this place under cover of night to return to his family was even starting to sound more and more like an actual, reachable goal rather than just a dream.

But what if Ashe found out, somehow, that Yuri had seen Sunny with his own two eyes and hadn’t done anything? Had just sat there, speechless, motionless, while Sunny was _right there?_ Ashe finding out about something like that seemed improbable, all things considered, and yet the logic and reason Yuri prided himself so much on fled him now, leaving him with only the what-ifs, the hypotheses, too many theories he couldn’t balance out.

There was talk about bringing Rocket back together again. They would recruit, slowly. Their numbers would grow the same way it had back in Kanto. A recruiting agent was among them, and it wouldn’t be too hard to fool gullible trainers with promises of money and riches.

And then what? Yuri thought about it, thought about how easy it was to send money back to Mother through either the ATM in the department store or the PC system they had set up in the basement. Hell, Constance wouldn’t mind having her Kadabra teleport the money straight into Mother’s drawer for him if he asked nicely enough. He thought about Ashe, about how the last time Yuri saw him he had helped Byleth take down Giovanni in Silph Co., and the last time Yuri heard about him he was still taking on the League Challenge, growing stronger and more talked-about on League channels everyday.

Here he was, still floundering in indecision, drowning in possibilities and probabilities while Balthus, Constance, and Hapi still looked to him for orders rather than to Archer, the same way they looked to him rather than to Giovanni. What more could he do? He was here. He was Rocket.

The tunnel shook and rumbled at the passing of the Magnet Train. Yuri placed one foot in front of the other, step by step, little by little. He didn’t know where he was going just yet, and where this road would take him, but he wasn’t one to leave things unfinished. The League Challenge had been a means to an end; Rocket would be no different.

“I don’t see why we _all_ have to come with you,” Yuri sighs, arms behind his head as he trudges along, not even bothering to keep up with Constance’s rapid pace. “You were doing fine with just Hapi to drag around.”

“Oh, come off it, Yuri!” Constance giggles, actually _giggles._ Yuri hasn’t seen her this happy about something in years. “You should be _congratulating_ me right now, you know. It isn’t everyday one of your best friends gets invited to talk about her favorite subject in a renowned university! Can you believe it? You can’t, can you? Me neither!” And she giggles some more, twirling in place as she does so. A wild Blitzle in the tall grass stares after her, looking bewildered. Yuri cannot blame it.

Balthus lets out a booming laugh that scares the wild Blitzle away; once again, Yuri cannot blame it. “Yeah, lighten up, boss!” he says, smacking Constance’s back. It says a lot about how used to it she is—how used they _all_ are, really—that she doesn’t even stumble. “We should celebrate after the seminar! How does the Café Warehouse sound?”

“That’s way too cheap, B,” Hapi protests. “Didn’t you promise us steak night would be on you? Now sounds like a great time to remind you ‘bout that, in case you forgot.” Her Flareon perks up at the sound of the word _steak,_ predictably enough.

Balthus pales. “Oh. Uh-huh. Right.”

“Underground matches didn’t go so well, huh?”

“Hey now, no need to go for the jugular like that! And they _are_ goin’ well,” Balthus harrumphs, folding his arms over his chest. “Guts is ‘boutta evolve, I can feel it.”

“Guts?” Yuri asks.

“Yeah, my Timburr! You saw him the other day, right?”

“Oh, him.” Yuri hums. “I bet if you ran a survey on what trainers most commonly name their Timburrs, over half the responses from little kids would be Guts.”

“Same with Machop in Kanto,” Hapi adds, snickering.

“Balthus, we have talked about this creativity problem of yours,” Constance says, actually stopping in her tracks to place her hands on her hips and frown at him in disappointment. Her Furfrou, which had been happily trotting along beside her, copies her expression admirably well. “Imagine if you were up against another Pokémon from the Timburr line, and it was _also_ named Guts. The chaos!”

Balthus scratches his chin, looking properly scolded. “Uh, well. That actually happened once.”

Hapi chokes on a laugh. “ _What?_ ”

“Yeah, not with Guts, though, I think it was with Min.”

“Let me guess,” Constance drawls. “A Mienshao.”

“Man, you do _not_ have to do this to me. Alright, what about…”

Yuri smiles, but the conversation fades into white noise when he catches sight of movement in the pond. Probably just a Goldeen or Basculin, but—

 _Splash._ This time he sees it—a long blue, split-tail fin, waving just above the surface of the water before it disappears into the pond once more. “Hold on a second, you three,” Yuri says, though he doesn’t particularly care if they wait for him or leave him behind—he takes a few cautious steps closer to the pond until one hard smack on the shoulder by Balthus and he’ll be sent careening into the water.

“What is it, Yuri-bird?” Hapi asks, tilting her head. Constance has followed his gaze and is squinting at the water as if she can will whatever that just was to come out again.

“I thought I saw… something.” Yuri frowns. Frankly it’s none of his concern if there are strange Pokémon in these parts—it’s the job of the League officials stationed in all routes to maintain the population, not his—but he can’t quite let go of the itch to see what that had been. Probably a leftover habit from Rocket, an organization that earned its income primarily from the poaching and selling of rare Pokémon.

Bubbles rise to the surface of the water. He waits silently, patiently, keeping one hand ready on Lamia’s Pokéball—and takes a startled step back when what emerges from the pond is neither Goldeen nor Basculin, but—

“A Vaporeon?” Balthus blurts out.

Yuri almost turns around to shush him, but the Vaporeon only blinks at them slowly, neither reacting aggressively or fearfully. It’s… not reacting at all, really. Yuri stares at it, long and slow, and decides this is most likely a trainer’s Pokémon—there’s no way a Vaporeon would just be running wild in Unova, unless it was released by its previous trainer, and there’s no way any trainer with a brain would release their Vaporeon. “Hey there,” Yuri greets. “What’re you doing out here?”

The Vaporeon turns its bored gaze on him, still not reacting outside of its lazy, languid movements. Then it glances at something else behind Yuri, and Yuri turns around as well—it’s looking directly at Hapi’s Flareon, who’s standing shocked still and staring right back.

Seconds pass, so slow Yuri mistakes them for minutes. Then the Vaporeon blows a bubble into the air before disappearing beneath the surface again; the water is so clear that Yuri can see its outline swimming away from them, fast enough that trying to circle around to the other side of the pond would be pointless.

“That’s weird,” he huffs, stepping away from the pond. “I guess someone here just has their Pokémon loose in the water. Hapi, does your Flareon know the guy?”

“Dunno, but he’s acting weird. You okay, Chilly?” Hapi mumbles, crouched down and running her hand through Chilly’s fur. Considering Yuri’s read about how Flareons can have body temperatures of over three thousand degrees, he’ll never understand Hapi’s naming scheme. “Maybe he’s just going into heat.”

Constance stares down at her. “Hapi, please. That was clearly a male Vaporeon. Females are distinctly different from males in that the backs of their ears are all black and they have fins on each leg—”

“Okay,” Hapi gently interrupts, “and?”

Constance seems to think this over for a moment, then nods. “Never mind. I see my mistake.”

Yuri sighs—once again, they’d strayed so far away from the original topic that he genuinely doubts Balthus remembers their previous concern. “Never mind, let’s just get going. Sorry for the hold-up. Rare Pokémon, you know.” Rare _Kantoan_ Pokémon, his brain reminds him. It’s true Eevee have become more common in other regions despite originally being native to Kanto until they were hunted and captured to near-extinction, but…

He casts one last look at the pond, its surface now perfectly still, then shakes his head and gestures for them to hurry on to Nacrene before Constance is late for her seminar.

Yuri’s only been to Nacrene City a handful of times, and all of them had been because the grocery at Striaton doesn’t stock the very specific ingredients the restaurant needs for one of its specialty dishes. It’s much like Striaton at first glance: bustling city crowds, honking cars, and enthusiastic street vendors Balthus politely picks up before setting down on the sidewalk so they don’t get run over by irritated drivers. Nacrene Gym, also known as Nacrene Museum, also known as Nacrene Library, is visible even from the entrance of the gatehouse.

Constance skips around in glee, her Furfrou following after her. Yuri hopes it doesn’t get dirt all over its fur, since brown would stand out quite a bit on its Debutante trim. “Alright! I have a little under half an hour before my presentation,” Constance chirps. She locks arms with Hapi, nearly dragging the other woman across the road, and declares, “Hapi, dear! What do you think about taking a little tour around the university campus with me first!”

“Uh, Coco, hold on, hold on a minute now,” Hapi yelps, but it’s too late—they’ve already turned the corner at the end of the street and have disappeared into the crowd. Chilly whines and hurries to chase after his trainer.

Balthus whistles. “I think I’ll take a look in the Gym myself, see if anyone’s worth sparring against in there. Wanna come with, boss?”

“No, thanks. I get enough of Gyms at my job.” Yuri stretches his arms over his head. It’s a nice clear day, perfect for strolling around the city. “You go on, Balthus. I’ll take a walk or something.”

“Got it! See ya later!”

If Sunny were here, Yuri would let him out to run alongside him on the concrete, but he had brought Sunny to the Daycare right after the incident, and it’s been almost two weeks since then. None of Yuri’s other Pokémon really like being out of their Pokéballs for no reason, aside from Sable, but she isn’t really much for unnecessary exercise. Yuri sighs—he really had gotten himself a whole team with the same personalities.

Sunny is— _was_ —the only one who really stood out among them, he supposes. Considering Sable’s and Lamia’s kinds live underground, Mara sleeps during the day in caves, and his two other Pokémon flourish in snowstorms and blizzards, that Raichu really does live up to his name.

Constance’s presentation about Pokémon language at the Nacrene University—probably also Ashe’s alma mater, now that he thinks about it, haha, what a coincidence—is scheduled to go on until five in the afternoon, although she tends to talk much more than planned and go off on tangents that only a select few can keep up with, so it’ll probably extend for a few minutes longer. Yuri takes his time wandering through the city, appreciating it for more than its grocery, even finding a runaway Cottonee and bringing it back to its young trainer because he’s just that nice a person.

He slows down when he reaches the border between Nacrene and the exterior of Pinwheel Forest. Yuri had passed through here before, but he’d been together with Balthus, Constance, and Hapi then since they had all been coming from Mistralton Airport, and all he really remembers about the place is that there’s good reason only League trainers are permitted to enter the forest’s twisting interior. Still, there had been a more scenic route that goes straight to the Skyarrow Bridge… maybe Yuri can poke around in there, just for fun. It’s been a while since he’s been a refreshing distance away from civilization.

Trainers, most of them League Challengers, are scattered all around the area, hunting down wild Pokémon or battling against each other. Yuri watches a few of the more entertaining matches idly, but none of them are on the scale of what he’s more used to (which is to say, life and death). Further in he spots a pair of Panpours splashing around in the puddles leftover by the rain from earlier, and a Sawk and Throh are going at it by the Challenge Rock just barely visible from below. A Pidove flits by while Yuri’s looking up, a breeze blowing across his face and sending his hair flying every which way.

It’s nothing at all like their apartment in Striaton, or the lodgings at Snowpoint, or the basement of the Goldenrod department store. It reminds Yuri of being sixteen again, three Pokéballs at his belt, Ashe at his side, forgetting about the rooms in the Pokémon Center so they could camp out under the stars.

 _A means to an end,_ Yuri tells himself, not for the first time. _The League Challenge had been a means to an end. There’s no point reliving those memories now._

By the gods, he can’t say he doesn’t miss them, though.

A sudden _splash_ drags him out of his thoughts—the Panpours from earlier have disappeared, probably run back into the tall grass, and the puddles had been empty when Yuri had glanced at them. He squints—and sees it again, a blur of blue movement atop the rain puddles, the reflection of the clouds in the sky distorting under some sort of Pokémon. He peers closer—

 _Again!_ It’s the Vaporeon from Route 3, now splashing about in the puddles without a care in the world. How had it gotten here without Yuri noticing? He’s heard Vaporeon can transform into water molecules for camouflage, but surely it can’t do that in Nacrene without having to pass through the sewers, which is downright poisonous for a species that prefers freshwater. He takes a step closer, being sure to silence his steps and blend in with his surroundings, but the Vaporeon’s ears twitch anyway.

Figuring it’s pointless to try and hide from a Pokémon with superior smell and hearing, Yuri gives up and moves into plain view. “It’s you again, isn’t it?” he asks, planting his hands on his hips. “You were in the pond in Route 3.”

The Vaporeon doesn’t react, though it does pause in its playing to stare up at him, head tilted slightly upwards in an almost haughty manner… wait. Yuri squints harder, and lets out a little “huh” when he sees it: a lavender satin ribbon, tied in a neat little bow just beneath the frilled white fin around its neck. Definitely a trainer Pokémon, then, unless this somehow got a wild Pokémon with opposable thumbs to tie that for it. “Are you lost or something? Need to find your trainer?”

Its tail flicks, and when it only tilts its head further up, Yuri realizes it’s _turning its nose up at him,_ the little shit. Who knew Pokémon could be so snooty? Actually, never mind, he has Sunny for a reason. “You don’t think I’m some kind of pushover, do you?” Yuri asks, leaning back and putting his weight on one leg. He’ll just have to out-snoot this thing, it looks. “I’m a pretty scary trainer, I’ll have you know.” _If I had any counters for Water-type Pokémon, that is…_

The Vaporeon tenses, and Yuri places a hand on his belt, but it’s faster than he expected—it bolts straight past him, clearly heading for the interior of Pinwheel Forest. Great—if it gets too far in there, who knows if Yuri will ever find it again? He grabs one of his Pokéballs and tosses it in the air, giving the Pokémon inside a jumping start. “Shiva, after that Vaporeon!”

Shiva lets out an excited cackle, and Yuri supposes he’d sound like that too after days of boredom inside a ball. The Weavile lands running, pushing past shocked trainers and Pokémon alike, in contrast to the Vaporeon gracefully weaving in and out of obstacles before disappearing inside the forest. “Ah, shit,” Yuri sighs to himself. He’s not even sure why he’s still chasing this thing anymore, but he’s gone this far and he’s already let Shiva out, so he might as well. “Keep going!”

 _This is just like Viridian Forest and Ilex Forest,_ Yuri tells himself as soon as he ducks into the darkness of Pinwheel Forest’s interior. _Nothing to be scared of. Just a bunch of trees and a giant Scolipede here and there._ He takes comfort in the fact that there are other people inside, most of them chatting companionably and admiring the sights, but that comfort fades relatively quickly when the Vaporeon abruptly swerves right and leaps off the bridge, landing in the lake with a telling splash.

Yuri skids to a stop, leaning against the handrails on the bridge. “Oh, _come_ on,” he groans. It isn’t as easy to see the outline of the Vaporeon underwater with thick foliage blocking out the sunlight. Shiva stands beside him, long, sharp claws resting atop the handrail, his expression thoughtful. “No, don’t jump in,” Yuri hastens to say before Shiva can get any ideas in that head of his. “Think you can track it down instead?”

Shiva grins wickedly. He sniffs the air, eyes closed, then takes off on all fours a little further down the road and off the bridge, stopping at a gap in the fence separating the eastern side of the forest from the cleared road. “Nice one,” he says, meeting Shiva in a very careful high-five, before squeezing through the fence and reassessing his surroundings. There are less trainers and wild Pokémon around, which would normally suit him just fine, but as he and Shiva walk deeper and the noise fades into eerie silence, he’s starting to hope for _something_ to show up, just to fill up the quiet.

They follow the lake for a while, Yuri keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of movement or the flick of a Vaporeon’s tail, until it abruptly ends at a ledge. Shiva sniffs around again, and Yuri waits patiently—none of his Pokémon are better than Sunny when it comes to their sense of smell, which really only makes him miss the stupid Raichu more. He probably would have been able to zap the Vaporeon with a Thunder Wave before it had run this far out, too…

“Vile,” Shiva says, pointing—as well as he can point, anyway—to the direction they had just come from.

Yuri frowns. “Backtracking? But—” He pauses when he sees bubbles on the surface, and the faint shadow of something distinctly Vaporeon-sized swimming towards, yes, the direction Shiva is pointing him towards. Yuri huffs, ready to give this up as a lost cause, but follows the Vaporeon for a little while. It doesn’t hop back up onto the bridge, possibly because it’s too high for it to attempt anyway, but instead swims towards a small, square patch of land on the other end of the lake. It’s too far away to pick out any other details…

“Alright, good job, Shiva,” Yuri says, tapping the Weavile lightly on the forehead with his Pokéball. He sends Mara out this time, the Crobat materializing resting atop his hair, which Yuri thinks might be his favorite perching spot for some reason. Maybe because they’re both purple. “Mara, mind flying me just there—over there, that little bit of land?”

Mara makes an affirmative little _click_ sound, his stubby feet gripping onto Yuri’s shoulders to lift him up. The flight barely lasts a minute—by the time Mara sets him down on the other side of the lake, the Vaporeon has just clambered up onto land, sitting primly on its hind legs and waiting for him with an impatient sort of air about it. “Yeah, yeah, thanks for waiting,” Yuri grumbles, rubbing Mara’s head in thanks. “Did you want to bring me here or something? What for?”

The Vaporeon doesn’t respond aside from staring at him once more, then turning away to slip into a gap between two large trees. So, just like usual. Mara makes a series of pings and clicks, somehow managing to sound inquiring.

Yuri shakes his head. “I have no idea either, but it might be important and I’m way too invested in this already. Let’s go.”

It looks like one of the so-called hidden grottos Yuri hears about sometimes among beginning trainers buzzing with information and talking overly-loud while waiting for their Gym battle in the restaurant—the path is so narrow Yuri wonders if this is a Pokémon-only event after all, but it eventually widens out into a small, leafy alcove where the Vaporeon sits in the center of. Mara lands atop Yuri’s head again, chittering softly. “What is it? Anything off?” Yuri whispers, but Mara only shakes his head (so, once again, his entire body) and flutters his wings.

It’s when Yuri steps closer to the Vaporeon that it moves out of the way, and he sucks in a sharp inhale at what it had been hiding behind itself. “Oh, shit—shit, shit, shit. Oh, hell. How did this happen?”

There’s a very familiar Pokémon lying prone on the grass—a Murkrow, a species Rocket had used almost exclusively for delivering messages that they could not, under any circumstances, risk being intercepted. Their lithe bodies and ability to maintain a flight speed of 60 miles an hour had made them excellent for when they had to begin cutting their communications networks to prepare for the siege on the Goldenrod Radio Tower. Yuri had been fond of them himself during their time in Johto, though he’d never been lucky (or unlucky, depending on superstition) enough to catch one himself.

And now there’s one right before him, its breathing labored, its eyes screwed shut, and its right wing bent at an unnatural angle.

Yuri’s suddenly glad Sunny isn’t with him right now—he may have ground the law on only bringing six Pokémon around into the dirt and spat on it when he was a Rocket, but he’s a law-abiding citizen now (psh), and he’d rather not risk getting his very illegal trainer ID revoked for carting around a seventh Pokémon, even if said Pokémon _is_ severely injured. He fishes around in his bag, heaving out a sigh of relief at the spare Pokéball tucked deep in one corner, and crouches down to come closer to the Murkrow. “Hey there,” he whispers. “I’ll have to bring you into a Pokéball real quick. Just to get you some help, alright?”

The Murkrow caws, but it’s soft and low, far from the proud shrieks the Murkrows his fellow Rockets had used to cry. Yuri worries on his lower lip as he taps the Pokéball against the Murkrow’s crest, watching as it dissolves into carmine light. The Pokéball barely even twitches before it _dings_ for a successful capture.

The first Pokémon Yuri’s caught in a long, long while that won’t be used for killing.

“You know, if you wanted to show me something like that, you didn’t need to lead me on a wild Swanna chase,” Yuri grouses, hurrying out of the grotto and back into the forest, the Vaporeon following sedately behind him. “I mean, maybe a written note’s out of the question, but—”

Mara screeches directly beside his ear, which is far from the most pleasant sound Yuri’s ever heard. “Alright, alright! Get me to Nacrene City’s Pokémon Center, Mara,” Yuri says, clipping the Murkrow’s Pokéball to his belt and ignoring the beeping red circle on the center—there’s no time to sync the information to his phone’s Pokédex app, damn it—and gathering the Vaporeon up in his arms to carry along. Its damp, slippery skin makes this a real struggle, one the languid Vaporeon does nothing to help him with.

It feels like ages until they finally land in Nacrene, even though it was probably only a few minutes at most. Yuri drops the Vaporeon unceremoniously onto the concrete, returns Mara to his Pokéball after a thank-you, then rushes into the Pokémon Center without any further delays. “‘Scuse me, I, uh, think this is an emergency,” he says, grabbing the arm of a passing nurse and shoving the Murkrow’s Pokéball in his hands. “This—it’s a Murkrow, I think its wing’s broken—”

“Broken?” The nurse digs a scanner out of his pocket, runs it over the Pokéball’s center, and nods at whatever it displays on his machine. “Understood. It doesn’t seem life-threatening, at least, so don’t worry too much. Can I get a doctor here—Flying-type, broken wing!” He takes the Pokéball from Yuri’s hands, then hurries into one of the Center’s many rooms with a doctor following on his heels.

With an exhausted groan, Yuri slumps onto the nearest couch, nearly knocking over the magazine stand next to it; the ceiling-mounted television is on the news channel, a reporter blathering on about some runaway poacher. The Vaporeon from earlier struts forward and settles beside him on the cushions, posture perfectly poised. “Real happy with yourself now, huh?” Yuri grunts, nudging the Vaporeon with his elbow. The Vaporeon twitches as if disgusted. “Why didn’t you just ask your trainer? And come on, I _know_ you’ve got a trainer. You didn’t tie that ribbon by yourself, did you?”

Still no response, but just as Yuri’s about to threaten to throttle an answer out of it, he quickly realizes he doesn’t need to. “Showers!” someone shouts, nearly leaping onto the couch and startling both Yuri and the Vaporeon. “So this is where you went! How many times do I have to tell you to _say something_ if you’re going to explore?”

“A… Ashe?” Yuri coughs out, backing up against the arm rest. He lays a hand atop his Pokéball belt, but it’s more of a reflex action than anything. “Wait, this Vaporeon is _yours?_ ”

Ashe scoops the said Vaporeon up in his arms, looking embarrassed and sheepish at once. “Yeah, but, um—Yuri. Um. What are you doing here? I mean, uh. In Nacrene?”

 _Ugh._ Of all the trainers this Pokémon could have belonged to… “My friend’s here for a seminar,” Yuri says, keeping his answer nice and short. Hopefully Ashe gets a hint and leaves him alone to his business.

Unfortunately, Ashe does not. “A seminar?” he repeats, blinking. “In… the Pokémon Center?”

“Do I have to tell you about everything I do now?” Yuri huffs, not missing the flash of hurt in Ashe’s face. _Good,_ some twisted voice in his head murmurs; _let him feel like shit, too._ He ignores the guilt curdling in his own gut and adds, blandly, “I’ll get out of your city soon. Just waiting for something.”

“Oh, um…” Ashe looks down, staring at the tiled floor of the Center. His Vaporeon wriggles around in his arms. “Yeah. I—yeah, okay. Alright. Um. I’ll… get going now. Sorry.”

Why on earth is he apologizing? Yuri wants to throw something at Ashe’s face out of pure frustration. It’s not fair that _he_ had been the one at fault last time, and yet now he’s acting like he’s the one who had nearly been attacked by a giant six-foot-tall fire dog. Yuri leans back against the couch, shoving his hands back in his pockets and staring up at the ceiling as Ashe turns around to leave. Damn him and his pitiful face.

“Veee.”

“Hey—Showers, no!”

Yuri looks back down just to get a face-full of Vaporeon. “ _Oof—_ damn it, what do you want from me, you little—”

The Vaporeon—did Ashe call it ‘Showers?’ talk about uncreative names—ignores his protests and clambers up to settle atop Yuri’s shoulders, using his head as a convenient chin rest. “Vee,” it says again, and Yuri briefly realizes this is the first time it’s speaking since he’d first seen it back in Route 3. “Veeee.”

“What.”

Ashe, clearly flustered, hurries back to Yuri’s side. “I’m so sorry! I—Showers, he—he’s, um, a little… I don’t really know how to describe him… anyway. Showers, come here! Stop bothering others, please.”

“No, it’s…” Yuri sighs. He really is being too nice today. “It’s chill, don’t worry about it.” He reaches behind himself to pluck the Vaporeon off his shoulders just to set him down on his lap instead. Showers looks miffed, but makes no move to return to his original spot. Yuri glances up at Ashe, hovering uncertainly next to the couch armrest and looking unsure as to what to do or say next. “He led me to Pinwheel Forest.”

“ _What?_ ” Ashe sounds aghast. “T-That far?”

“Yeah, well, you don’t see much Vaporeons just out and about in the wild, so I figured he had _some_ reason to be hanging around near me,” Yuri explains. He has no idea why he’s doing this when some three minutes ago he had wanted nothing more than for Ashe to leave, but there’s no point dwelling on that now. “Turns out there was an injured Pokémon in the forest. That’s why I’m here, actually.” Yuri nods at the direction of the room the nurse had brought the Murkrow into.

Ashe looks contemplative. “Oh, I see. That does sort of sound like Showers, I guess.” After glancing at Yuri, he moves to take a seat on the opposite end of the couch, and Showers stretches his body to use Ashe’s thigh as a chin rest this time, while his hind legs and tail are draped across Yuri’s lap. “He acts all snooty like a rich kid’s pet Eevee, but he actually really cares about other people and Pokémon, even those he doesn’t know. He reminds me a lot of—”

He cuts himself off abruptly, freckled cheeks coloring pink. Yuri has to tamp down his own blush—he’s almost certain Ashe had just been about to say this Vaporeon had reminded him of _Yuri._ It would certainly explain the purple ribbon, at any rate. “When did you get a Vaporeon anyway?” Yuri asks, just to draw the conversation away.

“Showers was from Celadon’s black market.”

 _That_ gets Yuri’s attention. He sits up straighter, turning around to stare at Ashe. “I didn’t think you went to those places,” he says, somehow managing to keep the shock out of his voice.

“No, not in that way!” Ashe exclaims, waving his hands around. “I didn’t get him through an auction or anything like that. He’s one of the rejects, and one night he along with a bunch of other Eevees escaped their pen. I was in the area trying to look for clues about… Rocket,” he mumbles, breaking eye contact with Yuri, “when I heard the commotion. I teamed up with a friend to defeat the Pokémon breeders there and afterwards Showers wouldn’t stop following me around.”

Yuri says nothing first, looking down at Showers first. That explains why he had looked at Hapi’s Flareon, and why Chilly had reacted the way he did. “So you’re one of them, huh?” Yuri mumbles, stroking Showers’ back; the Vaporeon’s tail flicks in acknowledgement. “You must’ve been a real smart guy to break out of there.”

Once again, Showers only offers a bored, “Vee,” although Yuri thinks he hears a hint of pride.

Ashe rests a hand atop Showers’ head, gaze downcast once more. “Yuri,” he says, so soft Yuri barely hears him above the chatter of the Pokémon Center. “About last time…”

“I don’t wanna hear it.”

“No,” Ashe… agrees? Why is he agreeing? Yuri turns around and raises an eyebrow at him, but Ashe still isn’t looking at him, which is kind of a joke, really. “I’m the one who should be doing the listening this time.”

“The—” Yuri blinks, falters. “The listening?”

“I… I realized you never said anything about _why_ you joined Rocket in the first place,” Ashe says, all in one breath. He lifts his head at last, though he still can’t quite seem to meet Yuri’s eyes, fixing his gaze on a spot on Yuri’s cheek instead. “I sort of… never gave you a chance to explain. And there is a reason, right? You’re not someone who would join up with people like them just for the fun of it, Yuri.”

Yuri huffs. “Don’t act like you know so much about me,” he mumbles, but it’s a half-hearted deflection at best; Ashe seems to know this, judging by how he doesn’t react at the retort, just sits there like he’s waiting for Yuri to say something first. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?” Yuri mutters, crossing his arms. It’s not like he can stand up and leave either—Constance’s presentation will still be going on for another hour, at least, and he still has the Murkrow to worry about.

 _Fine._ “It was for profit.”

Ashe frowns. “Profit?”

“Don’t you remember what I took on the League Challenge for?” Yuri asks. “That was for profit, too. A means to an end. When we were in Rock Tunnel, the guy who recruited me told me about how I could earn way more than what I was getting as a League Challenger if I joined them.” He pauses, looks down. “We were kids, Ashe,” Yuri adds, softer. “I wasn’t as good at Pokémon battling as you were, and I was just barely earning enough to send back home. Mom would still be living on the streets if I hadn’t joined up with them.”

“But—” Ashe bites down on his lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. “No, I… No. I understand.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“I really do,” Ashe insists, and Yuri wonders if he’s supposed to take that seriously after everything that had happened when Ashe continues. “I… I mean, we’ve both been there. I know Rocket wasn’t… the best way to earn money,” he says, carefully, “but thinking about it, I can’t really say anything when I used to steal food and cash back before the League Challenge.”

Yuri can feel his eyebrows making their way up to his hairline of their own accord. “So you remember after all,” he says, dryly. “Was beginning to think you were born a League trainer.”

Ashe huffs out a laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe I was just… ashamed, of what I did, but it wasn’t my fault our parents died or that my siblings were still too young to take care of themselves. Just like how it’s not your fault your profit was ill-gained.”

 _Ill-gained._ Who even says that anymore? “So you get it after all.”

“I should have gotten it ages ago,” Ashe murmurs. “I thought about it a lot, after… you know, with Archy. And I realized I was only mad at you because—well, yeah, because you didn’t tell me, but also because even after all this time, you’re still stronger than me, too.”

For a very long moment, Yuri’s brain refuses to work. “Uh, _what?_ ”

“You cut me off that night with no warning at all,” Ashe says, scratching his cheek. For some messed-up reason Yuri can’t comprehend, he’s got a sheepish smile on his face. “If I were in your position, I don’t think I could have done it—or I would’ve told you about it, and if you said no I would’ve just gone along with that. But you went with what you thought was best; anything I said would have just held you down. You’ve always been that way. It seemed pretty mean a week ago, but…” He shrugs. “It was also pretty smart, for your—no, _our_ situation, at the time. I can’t deny that.”

Yuri exhales heavily, leaning against the couch again. _Stronger_ than Ashe? The thought is almost laughable, especially considering Yuri had been thinking the exact opposite for the past few weeks. “So, what?” he asks, forcing his voice into something approaching light-hearted. Can’t have Ashe thinking Yuri’s getting soft now. “You here just to say that?”

“I was here looking for my Vaporeon, but, well, yeah, sure.” Ashe shrugs. “And, um… I’m sorry, too. I should have controlled Archy… and my emotions better, that day. You could’ve…”

“Died?” Yuri suggests, when Ashe can’t seem to finish his sentence. “Don’t be an idiot. You think that big dog of yours can kill me in one bite? I’d like to see him try.” That’s a lie, but Ashe definitely doesn’t need to know that. “Anyway,” Yuri adds, hasty to change the conversation around and get that amused smile off Ashe’s face, “where’s Sunny? He’s still with you, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yeah!” Ashe digs out a Pokéball from his pocket, an action Yuri can’t help but squint at. What sort of League Challenger, whether present or previous, doesn’t use a Pokéball belt? “He played around a lot with the kids at the Daycare earlier, so he’s resting in here now. Do you wanna see him?”

Yuri shakes his head. “He’ll probably try to zap me in greeting. I was just curious.” Not like Yuri has missed him over the past week or anything. Definitely not. Why would he miss that annoying little rat anyway?

Ashe smiles like he knows exactly what Yuri is thinking, but tucks Sunny’s Pokéball back in his pocket all the same. He looks like he means to say something, but the nurse from earlier leaves the room, noting something down on a clipboard, and Yuri’s already up on his feet before the nurse can finish saying, “Mr. Leclerc? The trainer with the Murkrow?”

“That’s me,” Yuri says—from the corner of his eye he can see Ashe standing up as well, Showers comfortably curled up in his arms. “Will it be alright?”

The nurse nods. “The injury was worsened because it tried to move even afterwards, but keep the wrap on its wing for at least two weeks, and then another if it still has difficulty flying. Do you know how it broke its wing at all?”

Yuri frowns. “No, I just happened to find it while I was in Pinwheel Forest.”

“I see. It looks like it may have previously been trainer-owned, since it didn’t try to escape when it saw us,” the nurse says blandly. “Most Murkrow tend to avoid humans, so we wondered if it may have been an abused or abandoned Pokémon.”

 _Abused or abandoned…_ Yuri mulls over that thought long enough that he doesn’t even notice the side-eye the nurse is giving him until he clears his throat. “I told you, I just found him in the forest—my friend’s Vaporeon led me there,” Yuri huffs, pointing at the Vaporeon in question. Showers blinks slowly, looking extremely disinterested. “If I’d actually been the one to hurt that Murkrow, why would _I_ be the one bringing it to a Center, too?”

“Yes, of course,” the nurse mumbles, looking unconvinced but unwilling to press any further. “In any case, here—take good care of it. You’re free to return here or to any other Pokémon Center for inquiries and check-ups.” He hands over the Murkrow’s Pokéball, the center button still glowing a faint red to indicate unopened notifications.

“A Murkrow, huh?” Ashe remarks, moving to stand beside Yuri and peering curiously down at the Pokéball. “Those aren’t native to Unova at all. It really must have been a former trainer Pokémon. Will you be keeping it?”

“For as long as it’s still injured, yeah,” Yuri mutters. He rolls the Pokéball between his hands, careful not to touch the button lest he accidentally release a series of _dings_ from his phone. “Then I’ll probably release it. I don’t need any new Pokémon right now.”

Ashe gives him an uncertain look. “Murkrow tend to live in flocks. This one wouldn’t do well all on its own in an unfamiliar place.”

“Then that’s its own problem,” Yuri says, but he doesn’t expect Ashe to believe he means that when his voice sounds weak, even to him.

Ashe has to return to the Daycare, since he’s already a few minutes late to his next shift, and he bids Yuri a hasty goodbye before running off, Showers returned to his Pokéball. Yuri doesn’t have much to do now, since he’d walked around plenty and chasing after that pesky Vaporeon had been more tiring than he expected, so he heads towards the direction of the Café Warehouse to snag a table. Above him, the sky is streaked with reds and oranges for the sunset, and Yuri can see the nocturnal Purrloins slinking around near alleyways and behind buildings.

Once he gets a table at the café, Yuri toys with the Murkrow’s Pokéball again. He’ll have to let it out eventually, since he’ll have to explain its situation if it doesn’t already understand, and then probably help if it has any other problems with its wing…

 _Hold on, why am I doing all this anyway?_ He doesn’t _need_ to help this Murkrow out—it’s not like it’s his, and it hadn’t asked him to either. Showers had just meddled around and led him there, and then he’d acted mostly out of instinct. If anyone from Rocket saw him now, helping a Pokémon out without expecting anything in return, he’d be the laughingstock of the entire organization, and Yuri can’t blame them. The whole reason he had joined Rocket in the first place was because he had wanted something from them, after all.

But…

He presses the button, and the Murkrow materializes silently atop the café table. _Silently?_ Yeah, no doubt about it now. “Hey there,” Yuri says, slowly and deliberately lifting a hand—the Murkrow doesn’t flinch, but its eyes follow his every movement, focused gaze lingering on the Meowth tattoo on Yuri’s arm. “I’m the one who found you in the forest earlier. You doing alright so far?”

The Murkrow caws, flapping its one good wing. All its movements are smaller, more subdued, than Yuri remembers from other Murkrow, as it’s if used to making itself as unnoticeable as possible. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Yuri says. He reaches out to stroke its back with two fingers, and the Murkrow visibly hesitates before leaning in to his touch with a contented chirp. “You’re still hurt, so I’ll take care of you for a few weeks, if you like,” Yuri explains, keeping his voice as soft and non-threatening as possible. “Sound good?”

Another caw, another flap of its wing. Yuri can’t quite hold back his smile. “I used to really want one of you guys when I was in Johto,” he muses aloud. “Probably ‘cause I heard people say you were symbols of bad luck and misfortune and all that nonsense, but you just looked like cute birds to me.”

“Oh, Yuri-bird,” a familiar voice calls—Yuri looks up to see Hapi at the café doorway, staring at the Murkrow. “Yuri-bird with a bird,” Hapi amends thoughtfully. “When did you get a new Pokémon?”

Yuri shakes his head. “Bit of a long story. Where’s Constance?”

“She got caught up in the Q&A portion, so I decided to go ahead. I’m starving.” Hapi drops onto the chair across Yuri, reaching out to give the Murkrow a couple of pats before flipping the menu on the table open. “Can I order now?”

“You’d still do it even if I said no anyway. More importantly,” Yuri continues, before Hapi can direct all her concentration to the menu, “do you know if anyone else went to Unova? After, you know, Johto.”

Hapi looks up, frowning. “I didn’t keep track of where every member went, Yuri-bird, but it’s possible. Just like with any other region. Why d’you ask?”

“No reason.” Yuri stares down at the Murkrow, which has now hopped over to perch atop one of the two vacant chairs. With a sigh, he gives in and brings out his phone—as he’d expected, the Pokédex app is just about begging to be updated with new information. He waits a few minutes to sync the Murkrow’s details from the Pokéball to his phone, then heads straight for the page with _Location Caught_.

 _Ilex Forest, Johto…_ Of course. That just leaves the question of _how_ this Murkrow had found its way into Unova… or _who_ had brought it here, more like. Yuri runs through what little information he knows in his head—there are few ways to determine a Pokémon’s past trainers after it’s been set wild again, and none of those methods are particularly reliable nor accessible. Calling up all the past Rocket members Yuri can remember would be impractical, not to mention impossible, considering he himself gets a new phone every month and sells the old one to secondhand shops. He honestly doesn’t even need to—it’s not like he’s a criminal any longer—but old habits, he supposes.

Hapi has called a waiter over and is rattling off what sounds like enough food to drive Balthus bankrupt. “You sure are a mystery,” Yuri mumbles, just for the Murkrow to hear. It perks up, ruffling its feathers and blinking at Yuri. “But you’re cute, so it’s fine.”

A pleased caw.

“What about that bird is cute?” Hapi asks, sounding skeptical.

Yuri aims his fork at her. “Shut up. He’s very cute.” He checks his phone again and confirms that the Murkrow is, in fact, male. “Gonna need to figure out what to do with him though. I don’t know if I actually want to keep another Pokémon around…”

“What about your breeder friend? The one you were whining about for weeks.”

Yuri regrets ever having told the others about Ashe. He still vividly remembers what had happened after he spilled the whole story on one sad, drunken night: “So,” Hapi drawled, “he took the Pikachu in the divorce, huh?”

He shakes his head. “I was not _whining_ about Ashe.”

“Ashe… um-hm…” Hapi taps her chin in thought, and Yuri belatedly remembers she’s dropped by the Daycare a few times more than Yuri has—she and Constance are both helping a local Pokémon professor in Striaton with her research, which typically involves studying things like behavioral patterns and other topics Yuri isn’t concerned with. “Oh, I remember. Gray hair and freckles, right? He’s cute. Not bad, Yuri-bird.”

“That—” Yuri bristles. He can’t even say Ashe _isn’t_ cute, since he is, but, you know, just in that teddy-bear sort of way. Like how Yuri calls this Murkrow cute… or, well, no, he supposes it’s a bit different. But just a bit. Besides, he can’t really compare Ashe to the Murkrow; for one thing, the Murkrow is far cuter, and Ashe is more similar to a Pidove… and… he has no idea what Hapi had even said some five seconds ago anymore. “Whatever,” Yuri decides. _Whatever_ is always a safe response, though he gets an eye-roll from Hapi for his troubles. “We might have talked a little, but that doesn’t mean—”

“You talked? You _communicated?_ ” Hapi leans back in her seat, throwing an arm over her face. “If only Coco were here. She’d be able to pull off the swooning damsel better than me. But she’s not, so I have to do her job. Anyway, you’re not joking, are you? You actually made amends?”

“I didn’t say tha—”

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Hapi sighs. “I thought it’d just be you grumbling and grunting about Freckles twenty-four-seven. Oh, sweet release! Wait, does that mean it’s going to be you _pining_ instead—”

Yuri swats her arm off her face. “Hapi! No one is pining after anyone! Certainly not _me!_ ”

“Then why are you so red in the face?”

“That’s—That’s _your_ fault.” Yuri slaps the backs of his hands against his cheeks and winces—they _are_ warmer than usual. He can’t even pass it off as the heat of the day, considering the sun has almost completely sunk below the horizon now. “Ugh. Whatever. As I was _saying_ before you _rudely_ interrupted me, we talked about ourselves a bit, but it doesn’t mean we’re all buddy-buddy now either. And I’m _definitely_ not about to go asking him for help with this.”

Hapi looks distinctly unconvinced. “Umm, okay, if you say so,” she says, “but I think he’s been living in these parts longer than we have. If a you-know-what member came around, he might’ve heard about it or seen someone out of place.” She shrugs. “Just a suggestion. Don’t get your panties all up in a twist.”

“My panties are quite straight, thanks very much,” Yuri huffs. A passing waiter blinks down at them, as if trying to ascertain they had heard correctly.

Still, Hapi has a point—it’s possible Ashe might know or remember something. The guy most likely still holds a grudge against Rocket, even after the talk Yuri just had with him. And even if he doesn’t, he _is_ a Pokémon breeder; he’d probably know more about how to take care of the injured Murkrow than Yuri.

And now that Hapi had brought it up, Yuri can’t quite stop thinking about how Ashe _is_ cute. Just a little. Not like it matters, it’s but a simple observation any passerby can attest to, but…

Ugh. _Ugh._ Yuri is _not_ looking forward to the next time they meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- you know how samsung cellphones are more popular in korea (among other countries) than iphones are? i imagine that's how pokegears are in johto as compared to regular cellphones. same with the pokenav in hoenn & the poketch in sinnoh  
> \- like the rest of the eeveelutions, vaporeon doesn't actually have any gender differences, but i got the neat detail constance mentions from [here](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Vaporeon_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#Trivia)  
> \- [this is what a furfrou debutante trim looks like](https://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/f/f4/HOME676De.png), by the way. it's just so constance  
> \- [here is a map of pinwheel forest interior](https://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/2/27/Pinwheel_Forest_Spring_B2W2.png) since i know i'm awful at describing surroundings lol. murkrow also have a 0.1% chance of spawning in the hidden grotto yuri entered :)  
> \- since murkrow is obviously based off ravens/crows, i got [their flight speed from here](http://blogs.evergreen.edu/ebestiary/blog/2012/05/29/american-crow/). murkrow living in flocks (as mentioned by ashe) is taken from the [biology section](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Murkrow_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#Biology) of its bulbapedia page. additionally you can't actually catch any murkrow in johto's ilex forest, but i take what i want from canon and make the rest free real estate
> 
> pokemon teams (in order of appearance):
> 
> yuri  
> \- [sable](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sandslash_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (sandslash)  
> \- [lamia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamia) (arbok)  
> \- [mara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_\(folklore\)) (crobat)  
> \- sunny (raichu) (currently with ashe)  
> \- [shiva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#In_contemporary_culture) (weavile)  
> \- unnamed (but very cute) murkrow
> 
> ashe  
> \- [archy](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Archy) (arcanine)  
> \- [chilla](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Cinccino_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (cinccino)  
> \- [mothra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra) (butterfree)  
> \- [showers](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Vaporeon_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (vaporeon)
> 
> i don't know if i'll be able to upload the last chapter on time for the 7th day since i have unexpectedly found myself loaded down with doing my friends' homework for them but it's like, 3/4ths done at the time of typing, so look forward to it! (also, fbyleth comes back!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri had been stationed in Azalea Town’s Slowpoke Well when, once again, it happened: Byleth and her trusty Espurr arrived and absolutely decimated them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yuriashe week day 7: home/family & change | free day
> 
> on time after all :) this one is a grand 16k because i cannot be stopped. please enjoy!

Yuri had been stationed in Azalea Town’s Slowpoke Well when, once again, it happened: Byleth and her trusty Espurr arrived and absolutely decimated them.

It had been three years since Kanto, and they had just begun to pick themselves up off the ground (or underground, as it may be) again. Rocket had expanded. They had recruited enough members to establish branches in each major city in Johto. Archer, now interim head while Giovanni was still missing, had detailed an elaborate plan to both contact Giovanni again while gaining power over all of Johto. Cutting and selling Slowpoke tails was just another of their many side-projects to earn more money, and Yuri didn’t mind being isolated away in a small, sleepy town where it was unlikely anyone would catch on to what they were doing.

He was in the well when she arrived—it wasn’t hard to recognize her, because even if they hadn’t met in Kanto, she had apparently built up enough of a reputation to have her face on the screen every time someone in the break room changed the TV to the League channel. “You!” he snarled, Sable beside him had already tensed and ready to attack. “What are you doing here?” The guards stationed above ground weren’t to let any non-Rocket member down without a fight, which meant…

Byleth tilted her head. “Do I know you?”

“Do you _know_ me—” Yuri ground his teeth in frustration. Was he that unmemorable? Then again, it might be a good thing to be as forgettable as possible considering his occupation, but _still._ “I remember you from Kanto. You’re the one who took us down then, too.”

Byleth hummed. “I see. It’s been three years, but you’re all still the same.”

“Oh?” Yuri grinned. “You so sure about that? Bring your Pokémon out so we can test that theory of yours.”

“Hmm. Okay.” Byleth looked down at her Pokéball belt, hand skimming across the tops of around three balls before nodding to herself. “Will you be using your Sandslash first? Then I’ll use Chomp.”

Yuri stared at her. “Chomp?”

She flung a Pokéball out, and a Totodile materialized on the well floor, looking from side to side as if wondering why they were underground. Great, a Water-type—neither he nor Sable have found any effective ways on dealing with them. Still, it’s just a Totodile. “Your naming scheme is unoriginal,” Yuri said, giving Sable the hand signal for a Poison Sting. He had learned a long time ago that calling out moves for your Pokémon was only a rule in official League matches, and he was no League trainer.

Byleth didn’t even blink. “Ice Fang.”

Sable was faster—she hunched down onto all-fours and fired poisoned quills from her back, and the much slower Totodile stumbled with a whine when one pierced its stubby leg. Byleth looked undeterred. “Keep going.”

Yuri flicked his wrist: _Bulldoze._ Without a solid counter against Water-types just yet, they’d decided to use moves that would keep the opponent from getting too close; this tactic wouldn’t work on all of them, especially on Pokémon that specialized in long-range attacks, but it would do just fine on this Totodile that didn’t seem inclined to use even a Water Gun. Sable slammed her paws against the ground, claws piercing straight through rock, and it felt like the whole well shook from the force of the move.

Chomp fell over, knocking its poor head against a stone behind it. “D-Dile!” it whined.

Byleth still looked perfectly unaffected. She looked up at the low ceiling as if distracted, brushing the dust that came floating down off her shoulders. “Hmm. Uproar.”

 _Uproar?_ What would that do against Sable, as compared to a Water-type attack? “Dig,” Yuri ordered aloud, sticking his fingers in his ears. The sound would be much less harmful underground. Sable gave him a worried glance but obediently dug, burying herself in the earth not a second too late—the Totodile opened its jaws wide and let loose a terrible cry that rivaled Sable’s earlier Bulldoze. The cave shook again, and Yuri hoped his fellow Rocket members deeper inside were in the process of teleporting out of the well now.

Chomp fell silent after a few more seconds, panting heavily. “Good job,” Byleth said, returning the Totodile to his Pokéball right before Sable burst out of the earth, sinking her claws into the spot Chomp had just been standing on. “You should get out of here while you can,” Byleth suddenly said.

Yuri blinked at her. “Why the hell would I—”

The cave rumbled. And continued rumbling.

Yuri’s eyes widened. Sable’s Bulldoze wasn’t strong enough to do much but bring a bit of dust down, but when combined with that Totodile’s Uproar—“Are you crazy?” he shouted. “You’re going to bring the whole well down?”

Byleth shook her head. “Not the whole well. Just this area. I don’t intend on letting the Rocket members inside escape. Were you trying to buy them time?” she asked, when Yuri must have been too caught off-guard to hide the flicker of surprise on his face. “My Espurr is trained in jamming. Any Psychic-types nearby would be too distracted with their terrible headaches to teleport anyone outside of here.”

Yuri gaped like a Magikarp out of water. “You…”

“You should leave,” she repeated. “I won’t tell you again.” She walked past Yuri, not stumbling once while the cave was still shaking around them, and when the first stalactite came crashing down, instinct took over and had Yuri bolting towards the exit and out of the well.

There was no way to get past the part of the well that crumbled down, and having Sable dig underneath was too dangerous. Yuri paced back and forth outside for what felt like hours but was just under thirty minutes, and nearly jumped out of his skin when Byleth suddenly appeared by the well entrance in a dull flash of pink light, her Espurr on her shoulder. “Oh, you’re still here,” she said, as way of greeting.

“Those are my allies trapped down there,” Yuri growled. “Are you going to take responsibility for them? They can’t possibly get out on their own now that you ruined the damn well!”

“I didn’t ruin it,” Byleth said, sounding miffed. It was the first time she had showed any real emotion, and Yuri was almost too surprised to speak for a moment. “Once their Psychic-types regain consciousness, Iris and I will be long gone. They’ll be able to teleport out soon enough.”

Iris? That’s the name of the Espurr, then. Why was it so different from ‘Chomp?’ “And what about me?” Yuri huffed, placing his hands on his hips. “All three of my Pokémon are still in fighting condition. And I don’t think we finished our battle earlier.”

Byleth stared at him, eyes as blank and expressionless as her Espurr’s. “If you really wanted to stop me, you would have used that gun by now,” she pointed out. “Do you just want a Pokémon battle?”

She turned away and started walking down the path back to Azalea. Yuri blinked at her back—so exposed, so vulnerable, so _easy._ The gun strapped to his belt pressed against him, the metal cold and hard. In the past four years, he’d never used it because he never needed to—his Pokémon were strong enough to subdue any meddling trainer, and he was skilled enough with a knife that pressing the blade against someone’s neck was all he needed to do to threaten them into submission.

He reached behind him. Placed a hand on that cold, cold metal.

Yuri watched Byleth walk away until she disappeared from sight.

After that, she simply refused to stop interfering with their plans—next was in their headquarters in Mahogany Town, where she showed up with an annoyingly perky orange-haired girl whose Ambipom ruthlessly slammed Mara down to the floor with its tails. Then in Goldenrod, while they were trying to carry out their plan to contact Giovanni once again, Byleth showed up while Yuri was in charge of keeping the station manager in the basement.

“We meet again,” Byleth said.

“Hilarious. You recognize me.”

“Of course. I try to remember strong opponents, and this will already be our…” She trailed off. “Third meeting?”

 _Fourth,_ Yuri wanted to correct. It was hard to forget that day in Silph Co., Saffron City, the last time he had ever heard Ashe (until some five years later, anyway), and therefore the first time he had ever come face-to-face with the so-called ‘Ashen Demon,’ a League nickname her fans had given her. He doubted she even knew about it. “Trying to mess with us again?” he scoffed, spinning a Pokéball on one finger. “What’s your problem anyway? Why do you need to stick your nose in our business?”

Byleth ran a hand over her Pokéballs again—it looked like a habit of hers, as Yuri had noticed her doing that the past few times they had met. “At first it was just because you were in the way of my League Challenge,” she said. “When Rocket took over Saffron, I couldn’t go to the Saffron Gym, so I had to deal with you roadblocks first.”

Yuri felt his eye twitch. “Roadblocks, huh.” Was that all they were to her? Just a boulder to push out of the way, just some Caterpies to step on and kick aside?

“But now it’s because you’re hurting others,” Byleth continued. “I took you on in Slowpoke Well because a Rocket member stole my friend’s Aipom. And in Mahogany Town—Pokémon will be hurt if they’re forced to evolve. The Gyarados you sold and profited from will die early.” She paused, as if letting her words sink in. “I don’t think you’re a bad person. But you are doing bad things.”

Shit. He hadn’t been expecting a whole speech on her motivations. But—looking at her then, she had looked so _young._ Yuri estimated she was around two, three years younger than him, probably Ashe’s age, and the thought made his heart twist. Had Ashe told Byleth about himself, about how Rocket had stolen Sunny all those years ago, and was that what had spurred Byleth to take on Rocket in Silph Co. and during all their other missions in Kanto? It was entirely possible. This girl didn’t seem to show emotions much, if at all, and yet she cared about strangers and other people, doing things for them without expecting anything in return.

It was ridiculous. A world like that, where everyone treated everyone equally, where no one stepped on the other to get a better foothold in life… it was a world Yuri had never lived in and could never find himself living in. It was too ideal. Too good.

But it was a world someone like Ashe, an idealist to the core, could live in.

Yuri dropped his hands to his sides. “You’re here to save the station manager, aren’t you?” he asked. He stepped aside, leaving the narrow corridor in the Goldenrod Tunnel clear. “Go.”

Byleth blinked. “You’re letting me pass?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“Why the change of heart?”

There was no good answer to that question, if only because Yuri couldn’t think of an answer at all. He shrugged and said, “Maybe I’m just tired of being in your way.”

Byleth stared at him again, long and considering, then nodded. “Thank you. As I thought, you’re not a bad person at all.”

 _Not a good one, either._ “Shut up before I change my mind.”

He had very little time after that. Yuri contacted the other three in his group, barked at them to meet him in Olivine as fast as possible, and hurried out of the tunnel and back up into the city. “Mara!” he called, releasing the Crobat from his Pokéball. “Olivine, now—”

“There! Rocket over there!”

The police and other authorities were much smarter and faster on the uptake this time around, unlike in Kanto—they’d already swarmed the streets of Goldenrod like ants, and Yuri didn’t have a Psychic-type to safely teleport him out of the city. Mara lifted him up into the air and shot north towards Olivine, but Pidgeots and Skarmories were already giving chase. Yuri wanted to scream in frustration—up in the sky, there was no way he could keep hold on Sable while she fired Poison Stings or a Pin Missile from her quills, even with her accuracy.

Yuri tapped Mara on one of his feet. “Here, drop me here—we’ll have to take them on below before—”

Mara dipped down with a screech, and Yuri felt the Air Cutter from one of the Pidgeots race past above them, cutting off a few strands of his long hair. They tumbled down onto National Park, Yuri landing hard on his behind while he returned Mara to his ball before he could crash onto the ground, sending out Lamia and Sable instead. “Sludge Wave! Bulldoze! Just get as many of them as possible!”

It was no use—three officers had followed him, and a quick glance at their belts told Yuri he and his three Pokémon wouldn’t last against over ten opponents. But he couldn’t, _wouldn’t,_ give up here—Yuri was not one to surrender, and neither was he one to throw away the chance Byleth had given him. “Balthus! Anyone!” he shouted into his Pokégear. “National Park—any of you, send backup!”

Lamia expelled a Sludge Wave from her gaping jaws, pushing a Granbull and Ursaring back a few inches. Sable’s Bulldoze knocked over an unsteady Rhydon, which crashed down onto the Houndoom behind it. Static crackled from the radio. “Li’l busy here myself, boss,” Balthus groaned, the faint sounds of battle coming through as well.

“Hapi and I are cornered too!” Constance exclaimed. “We can’t—no! Laine, _no!_ ”

The Granbull mustered enough strength to push through the Sludge Wave, getting close enough to grab Lamia by just below her hood and squeeze, cutting off both the Sludge Wave and her breathing. The Rhydon picked itself up and advanced, shaking off the rest of Sable’s attacks and slamming her to the ground with one sweep of its claw.

Yuri returned both of them back to their Pokéballs—there was no way out of this now, and he couldn’t risk getting his Pokémon killed. These officers had trained their Pokémon to aim for death in every battle. “One more step and it’ll be over for you,” he threatened, but his voice sounded weak, even to him. He reached behind himself with one shaking hand and pulled out the gun, holding it in front of himself. “I said stay back!”

“Nice try, Rocket,” one of the officers sneered. He pulled out his own gun, and that was when Yuri figured this really was going to be the end for him. “Bet you’ve never even pulled that trigger in your life. Ursa, go ahead.”

The Ursaring stepped forward and, moving too fast for Yuri to avoid, snatched him by the neck and held him up in the air.

This was nothing new. Yuri had been choked and strangled and throttled before. He had even done it himself, when he needed money or information or just to get a trainer out of the way. Sometimes he got Lamia to do it, because it always seemed like she felt less guilty, and even as an Ekans she’d been trained by other Rockets to wrap around a person’s neck without them noticing until it was too late.

But this was definitely the first time Yuri had been choked by a _Pokémon._

“This is… illegal,” he gasped out. “Trainer Pokémon… can’t… attack humans…”

“Hey, we’re just doing what you do. Ain’t no problem for you Rockets, so it shouldn’t be a problem for us police too, right?” The officer stepped forward, though it was getting hard to distinguish him from the other two, considering Yuri’s vision was beginning to blur. “Look at you now. Thought you’d put up more of a fight, really.”

Yuri didn’t give up. Yuri didn’t surrender. But, gods, it was hard when the situation felt like there was literally no way out of it, not when he could feel the Ursaring’s claws inches away from puncturing his neck. Maybe if he sent out Mara… no, he wouldn’t be able to incapacitate a Pokémon of the Ursaring’s size fast enough… if it were Lamia… no, she’d be an easy target for the Rhydon just a few ways away… if it were Sable…

The world was blurring, fading. It would be easy to close his eyes. It would be easy to let his death be at the hands of the police, of the people he had hated for years. It would be easy.

And then there was a sudden flash of pink light, the feeling like he was falling through air, and— _bam_ —Yuri was landing face-first onto creaky hard floorboards. He sucked in several deep breaths before, naturally, spitting out, “ _What the fuck?_ ”

There was an Espurr standing in front of him—it was small enough that, even lying on the ground as he was, he only had to lift his head a little to be eye-level with the thing. It blinked at him, once, then teleported away before he could say anything else.

Yuri breathed in and out a little longer, then picked himself up off the floor—the room was small and cramped with items and supplies, like Potions and Pokéballs, most of them packed in cardboard boxes labeled with Rocket’s one-eyed Meowth symbol. One of their many safe houses that had thankfully been left undiscovered by the officials, then. Looking out the window confirmed he was in Olivine City, rather unsurprisingly—he should have known he was being followed, and that Byleth wouldn’t have let him go so easily like that.

Damn. Was he in her debt now? Or had she simply repaid the favor when he let her pass without a battle? Yuri hoped it was the latter, because he would very much prefer it if they never met again, and he doesn’t like having unpaid debts ready to be used against him at any time.

He grabbed his Pokégear and checked Balthus’ and Constance and Hapi’s locations—the little blinking dot representing Balthus was moving rapidly from Ecruteak to Olivine, so Yuri assumed he was either safe or running away. He was alive, at the very least. But Constance’s and Hapi’s dots were in Route 40, just to the west of Olivine, and unmoving—which could mean they were either still cornered by officials, or…

Yuri shoved the Pokégear back in his bag and jumped out the window, releasing Mara at the last second. He pointed in the direction of Route 40—high up in the air he could see its sandy shores and what looked like a disturbance further away. “Over there. Constance and Hapi need help.”

Mara clicked in affirmation and sped off—it took barely a minute before he was dropping Yuri onto the sand, Yuri landing with a roll. There were more police here than he had faced in Goldenrod, which meant several more enemy Pokémon as well, crowding in on Constance and Hapi backed up against a corner. Mara didn’t wait for an order before swooping down on a Starmie that was preparing to blast Hapi’s Flareon with a Hydro Pump, and Yuri threw Sable’s ball down to the sand. She came out already preparing a Bulldoze, knocking a half-dozen police officers off their feet; the nearby ocean waves seemed to almost tremble from the force.

Yuri stared at the waves. Maybe…

“Yuri!” Constance shouted—she was cradling her Flaaffy, Laine, in her arms, while her Persian snarled and lashed out at any Pokémon that came near. “Thank the gods—”

Yuri assessed the situation as fast as possible—Hapi’s Fearow was still fighting, but its movements were growing slower with every half-second. It could probably fly Constance and Hapi as far as Olivine, but that was if it didn’t collapse from exhaustion first. “Mara!” he called, jumping up just as his Crobat came flying back to grab onto his shoulders and lift him into the air. “Constance, Hapi! Return all your Pokémon and get on your Fearow!”

Hapi looked skeptical, and Constance looked like she wanted to argue, but Hapi whistled and her Fearow came zipping back, letting Constance climb on its back while Hapi dangled from its talons. Yuri waited for them to return the rest of their Pokémon and for the officers’ attention turned to him before grinning nervously. Now or never. “Sable, Earthquake!”

As Mara flew away from Route 40, Yuri watched the tsunami crash onto the police and their Pokémon. They wouldn’t die, probably, and even if they did, it wouldn’t really be by Yuri’s or Sable’s hands. Just the ocean’s.

Still, they had to get out of here in case more police came running after them. Hapi’s Fearow could only go as far as the city gates to Olivine before he had to crash, and Hapi returned him as soon as he managed to get them down on the ground. “You’re both alright?” Yuri asked, dropping down beside them and letting Mara perch on his head instead. “Balthus is on the way, I think, and I found a safe house around here, we can use the healing machine… Constance?”

She hadn’t returned her Flaaffy. It was still in her arms, head tucked against her chest, and it took Yuri a long few seconds to realize it wasn’t moving. “Laine,” Constance breathed, “she—a V-Victreebel—”

One of the Pokéballs on her belt had turned gray. Yuri couldn’t bring himself to do anything but stare at it—without a life force to absorb and compress you couldn’t return a dead Pokémon to its ball, and in turn the Pokéball would be completely unusable too, meant to be either broken or buried alongside the body of its previous inhabitant. But carting around a dead body would weigh them down too much, and they needed to leave as soon as possible—there was no time for a detour to Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town.

“What do you want to do?” Hapi asked. Her voice was the gentlest Yuri had ever heard it.

Constance stared down at the body, most likely growing colder and colder in her arms. “We can’t afford a delay,” she whispered, voice shaking but unbroken. She set Laine and its Pokéball down on the sand, closing Laine’s eyes, and took a step back. “This is fine,” Constance murmured. “She would not have w-wanted us to waste time.”

They met back up with Balthus in the safe house—there was one less Pokéball on his belt and a haunted look in his eyes, one Yuri politely decided not to comment on. Different ships in the Olivine Port led to different regions—the next one was in ten minutes, leaving for Kalos. After all they’d done over the past five years, sneaking onto a ship without a ticket was child’s play.

Constance cleared her throat. Her eyes were still rimmed with red, but none of them called her out for it. “Kalos was my motherland. If we decide to head there, I am confident my knowledge of its geography will keep us out of the authorities’ attention. However, I suggest we split up instead.”

Balthus recoiled. “Split up? What are you goin’ on about?”

“Not only would it be harder to board the ship with all four of us being stowaways, it would also be easier to track us down if we all went together,” Constance continued. “The ship after Kalos will be one heading to Hoenn, and then Alola, and then… I believe Sinnoh. All viable regions we could presumably hide away in.”

“That means zero communication,” Hapi pointed out. “Except for public computers and chat rooms.”

They were running out of time—Yuri’s Pokégear was showing blinking dots rapidly approaching Olivine. Rockets being chased here would mean more police to worry about. “We’ll split up,” he decided, injecting as much authority as he could in his voice. He was still the leader of their little group, and whether he liked it or not they always ended up deferring to his choices in the end. “We might be separated, but we can all take care of ourselves. But let’s promise each other now we’ll meet again.”

Hapi snorted. “Getting sentimental on us now, Yuri-bird?”

“Shut it. Well?”

They promised. Constance left for Kalos, Hapi returned to Hoenn, and Balthus to Alola. Yuri paced back and forth in the small room while other Rocket members went in and out, healing their Pokémon teams and stocking up on supplies. “These are some of the Pokémon we were supposed to sell in the market here before shit went down,” someone grumbled, sifting through a box of assorted Pokéballs. “Might as well get a few of ‘em before I hop on one of them ships.”

Yuri frowned down at the box, and approached it as soon as the others left. He’d nearly died earlier because he didn’t have enough Pokémon that could counter his opponents’, and he honestly had no idea why he didn’t have more than three Pokémon anyway. Maybe he _could_ get a few of the ones here, too—being alone in a foreign region meant he wouldn’t have anyone else but himself and his team to count on, after all.

He crouched down and waved his Pokégear over the box—the screen beeped, several outlines and silhouettes flickering in and out of view as it tried to analyze every Pokéball in the container. Yuri sat back and flicked through each of the Pokémon profiles: Nidoking, Clefairy, Girafarig, Dratini…

His hand faltered over the next one he swiped on. _Raichu._

It couldn’t be. Could it? He pressed the _Locate_ button and dug through the Pokéballs until he closed his fingers around the one that was beeping and vibrating slightly, pulling it out of the box. A regular Pokéball, as regular as the day he had used it.

Yuri could hear his heartbeat in his ears, loud and thumping like a funeral dirge. He scanned it with the Pokégear for more details, and his heartbeat only grew louder, faster, when he saw the name under _Location Caught:_ _abandoned power plant, Kanto._ Written under the _notes_ section, something usually used when trading or selling Pokémon, was, “Too unruly; to be sold to a Pichu-line collector.”

Too unruly. It definitely sounded like—

His Pokégear beeped with a reminder, and Yuri cursed—five minutes until the ship bound for Sinnoh would leave. There was no time to look for any other Pokémon; he snapped the Pokéball he was already holding onto his belt, healed his team up one more time, then set off towards the port.

Sinnoh was to the north and significantly further away from Johto as compared to Kanto or Hoenn. Yuri stowed away, hiding in one of the rooms on the lower deck and making himself as generally unnoticeable as possible; there were two other Rocket members on the ship, both of them so heavily disguised that Yuri barely even recognized them, but for the most part they stayed out of each other’s way. Acting conspiratorial and secretive would only draw more attention to themselves. For the next day or so, Yuri nabbed scraps and leftovers from the kitchen, eating whatever his Pokémon left behind. He didn’t touch the fourth Pokéball on his belt.

Canalave City, Sinnoh, was much colder than he expected. Dressed only in the clothes Yuri had left Johto with, he was bound to freeze within the next few hours if he didn’t find something else to wear. He snatched the thickest jacket he could find hanging on a clothesline and made a break for it before anyone could notice; he found a decent hiding spot in Route 218 and slept throughout the day, then flew by night with Mara. He needed somewhere tucked away and isolated from the rest of the region, and one look at a map told him everything he needed to know.

It took them almost a week to arrive at Snowpoint City, at the northernmost point of Sinnoh. Yuri poked around, found an Internet café, and fixed himself up with some forged documents and applied to a few different jobs around the city, eventually landing himself a spot as a part-timer in the local school. Thankfully he wouldn’t have to teach anything or deal with younger children—the job mostly entailed training high-schoolers up in Pokémon battling, which Yuri could do just fine.

At night, he crept out of the inn he had taken residence in, waited until a group of hikers near Acuity Lakefront left for Snowpoint, then released Sable. She looked around, clearly confused, but asked no questions and made no noise. Yuri stared down at the old, battered Pokéball in his hands for a long, long time until finally pressing the button on the center.

Somehow he still recognized Sunny, even as a Raichu, even after all this time. Dark scars encircled his neck, and his tail whipped straight up in the air before he had even fully materialized out of the ball, obviously sensing for danger and threats.

“Sunny,” Yuri whispered. “Hey.”

Sable dismissed the Thunderbolt attack Sunny let loose with a wave of her claw. Then she did it again. And again. And again, until Sunny screamed, loud enough that Yuri suspected the residents of Snowpoint heard him, and used Discharge instead—Sable guarded Yuri, but the rest of the sparks flew out from Sunny’s body, striking trees and burning the bark black.

Yuri had no idea how long this went on, but eventually Sunny ran out of electricity, hunched down on all-fours and unable to summon more than a few sparks from his cheeks. Yuri crouched down, Sable still standing in front of him, and said again, “Hey. I know you’re mad, but—do you even know where we are right now?”

Sunny snarled. It was the most animalistic Yuri had ever seen a Pokémon, and it probably said a lot about how much Sunny hated him right now.

“We’re in Sinnoh. Rocket disbanded—hopefully for real this time. I found your Pokéball and brought you here before I left Johto.” He swallowed. “I’m not expecting your thanks or anything. And I know you’d rather have Ashe—”

Sunny growled again, sparks flying from his electric sacs at the sound of Ashe’s name. Yuri worried on his lower lip—they had only been together for a day. _Less_ than a day, actually, if he remembers correctly. Had Ashe been that good a trainer, that good a person, that a newly-caught Pokémon that hadn’t seen him for five years was still attached to him?

“I know you’d rather have him here than me. But would you rather be sold to a collector back in Johto? Or abandoned in that Rocket safe house forever? I couldn’t just leave you there.”

“Rrrai.” _You should have,_ Sunny seemed to be saying.

How did Ashe ever do this? “Just bear with me for a while, alright?” Yuri asked—no, _pleaded._ “Maybe someday I’ll be able to find Ashe for you again. When I’ve got some steady income and decent living conditions, when things settle down. I’ll do it, alright? I promise.”

No response. Sunny stared at him, long and hard, and though it was better than being electrocuted to death, it was still frustrating to get, well, nothing. Sable chittered under her breath, but Sunny didn’t even look at her.

He turned away, and for a moment Yuri feared he would run off into the wilderness on his own, but Sunny only stood there, motionless, tail waving in the air. “Rai.” _Fine._

It was something. It was a start. It was another promise Yuri wasn’t sure if he could keep. He held his head in his hands and sighed, hard.

For two years he hopped from job to job, taking whatever he could get—cooking in a restaurant, helping with ship and cargo maintenance, cleaning the Snowpoint Temple, catching rare Pokémon for collectors. He sent money back to Mother every month, despite her insisting she no longer needed it. The days were long and cold, the nights longer and colder. There were no huge department stores run by rich corporations in the remote city, leaving only small convenience stores and local vendors who were as down on their luck as Yuri was. He subsisted on instant noodles and vending machine drinks instead.

On one of his ventures out in Route 217, a heavy blizzard struck while he was too far away to get back to Snowpoint in time, and he lost consciousness buried in the snow. When next he woke up it was to the sound of a Pokémon battle, if a very weak one. A wild Sneasel and Snorunt were duking it out right next to him, where he was lying in some tall grass and thankfully not afflicted with frostbite. He glanced around—this was Acuity Lakefront, closer to Snowpoint than Route 217.

“Uh,” Yuri said, grabbing the attention of both Pokémon. They paused in their fight and stared at him, blinking, as if they hadn’t quite expected him to wake up. Had they thought he was dead? “Did you guys save me or something?”

No, that wasn’t possible—or, at the very least, they hadn’t dug him out of the snow to save him. Sneasel and Snorunt were both Pokémon capable of eating humans if there was no other food around, and in a place as barren as up north… “Man, I get it,” Yuri grumbled, shaking snow out of his hair, “you were fighting over who gets to eat me, huh?”

It took a grand total of three minutes for Sable to defeat both of them on her own. Yuri looked down at the two, the Sneasel lying face-down on the snow and the Snorunt whimpering sadly, and sighed—they were terribly thin, and if they were out here by themselves then they probably didn’t have parents to return to. He dug around in his bag, glad to find his things were all more or less still there, and retrieved two spare Pokéballs. “How about it?” he asked, when both Pokémon eyed him warily. “Help me out and we’ll share the dining table. I can think of plenty of jobs only Ice-types like you guys can do.”

They glanced at each other as if to discuss things, which was hilarious considering they had just been fighting to the death earlier, then looked back up at Yuri. _Finally, a full team,_ he had thought, when he was logging in their information on his phone.

The lone Internet café in Snowpoint soon became Yuri’s only connection to the others. Constance was with old childhood friends in Kalos and seemed to be doing fairly well, all things considered; Hapi had taken on the League Challenge in Hoenn for extra cash; Balthus was working in the Battle Royal Dome, unsurprisingly enough. A few days after Yuri turned twenty-three, Hapi pulled up what looked like a real estate website on her phone and showed them the screen. “Check this out,” she said. “Two-bedroom in Striaton, Unova. Rent’s not bad. I got myself a plane ticket—”

“How do you just _get yourself_ a plane ticket?” Balthus asked.

“Oh, you know,” Hapi said, dismissively. “Anyway, if you guys can sneak your way onto a plane here, or go the legal way and pay up… well, what do you think?”

For a while, Yuri wasn’t used being back in a warm, bustling city, and when he got the job to be a waiter at the Striaton Gym restaurant, he had to keep himself from thinking about where he might apply next, too. Shiva and Khione complained about the heat all day, while Mara grew enamored with Wellspring Cave in Route 3. They went to a furniture store and spent the whole day shopping there, and then when they had finished setting up their apartment, the four of them sat around together in one of the bedrooms to share stories and show off new Pokémon. Sunny watched the sunset and let Yuri pet him without electrocuting him.

Yuri was twenty-three years old. Somewhere, elsewhere, Ashe was twenty. He pressed his forehead against Sunny’s back and sighed, ruffling orange fur. “I haven’t forgotten my promise, you know.”

“Rai.”

“You haven’t either, I bet.” Yuri closed his eyes. “Just give me time. I don’t know how I might find him, but just give me time.”

Sunny said nothing, just stared out the window and up at the sky, like he was waiting for something. Someone.

Yuri makes it a point to never get up early on weekends. There’s no point, after all, and he rarely ever gets to sleep in during the week itself—sometimes Gym battles go on for literal _hours,_ and he’s stuck cleaning up the aftermath until nearly one in the morning. Those weekend mornings when he can stay in bed until noon and wake up just in time for lunch? Pure, unadulterated bliss. He wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Of course, he’s woken up several hours earlier than usual by the damn doorbell. At eight in the morning. _On a weekend._

Yuri practically stomps out of his room and towards the door, then flings it open with perfectly necessary vehemence, still rubbing his eyes the whole while. “You _better_ have a good reason for waking me up this gods-damn early,” he snarls, dragging one hand through his bedhead. “If not, I am going to fucking—”

Then he opens his eyes, and has to blink several times to believe what he’s seeing. “Uh. Ashe?”

“Morning to you too,” Ashe greets, a little sheepishly. Sunny is by his feet, smiling up at Yuri. Wait, _smiling?_ Since when has _Sunny_ smiled at him? “You’re still the same as ever.”

“What? Well, um, yeah…” Yuri gives up on trying to fix his hair. Without a proper shower, a proper hairbrush, and a proper amount of time in front of the mirror, it’s a lost cause he’s all too familiar with. “Can you blame me? Who the hell gets up early in the mornings of their own will? Oh, right, yes, you, sunshine boy. Anyway, what brings?”

Yuri’s not sure if it’s just how his vision is still bleary with sleep, but he could have sworn Ashe’s cheeks went red for a moment there. “Uh, um. Sunny—he—err—well, he woke me up early a while ago too, jumping around and stuff, so I asked if he wanted to see you and he said yes, so…?”

“He wanted to see me?” Yuri crouches down to look Sunny in the eye. “ _You_ wanted to see _me?_ ”

Sunny scowls and swats at Yuri’s face with one paw—or attempts to, anyway, because his paw is so short that Yuri only need lean back to avoid him. “Rai-rai!” He gestures at Yuri… or, no, he gestures at the inside of the apartment.

“I may have told him about the whole deal with Showers,” Ashe says, rubbing the back of his neck. “He probably wants to see the new Pokémon you caught. And I’m pretty curious too—I’ve never been able to observe a Murkrow up close.” His eyes are sparkling, and Yuri shakes his head; sometimes he still forgets the guy’s a Pokémon breeder. “O-Oh, um, only if it’s okay, of course,” Ashe hurriedly adds, meek and shy all over again.

Is it really a good idea to let Ashe in the apartment? Granted, no one else is home—Balthus’ part-time jobs are ruthless, and Constance and Hapi are on a research field run in the Dreamyard—but Yuri’s not used to anyone aside from the four of them being in here. It’s always been a safe space for him, and he treats it almost like how he’d treat their old safe houses from their Rocket days, when _safety_ was a concept they had long since forgotten existed for people who weren’t like them.

Yuri glances up at Ashe. There’s nothing deceptive about him, nothing that Yuri might be able to pinpoint and analyze and pick apart until he sees fault. Yuri has never been able to lie to Ashe, but he supposes he’d never thought about how Ashe has never lied to him, either.

“Sure, what the hell,” Yuri grumbles, opening the door the rest of the way. Sunny scampers right on in, while Ashe looks almost surprised. Yuri raises an eyebrow and pretends his own heart isn’t thumping rapidly away in his chest. “Well? Get a move on, I’m not gonna keep this door open forever.”

“Oh, I… thank you, Yuri,” Ashe says, softly, and now Yuri just wants to bonk him. Why is he acting all surprised? Did he expect Yuri to tell him to run back home to Nacrene or something? “Well, um, pardon my intrusion, then…”

Their apartment isn’t much, really—it’s the two bedrooms, one for Yuri and Balthus and the other for Hapi and Constance, then the living room, the kitchen, and, unfortunately, one shared bathroom, which makes weekday mornings absolute hell for all four of them. Normally the place is full of noise, since Yuri’s Pokémon are the only ones who don’t like being out of their Pokéballs, but today it’s nice and quiet. Sable is toddling around, opening up the windows to let fresh air in, and she chitters in greeting when she sees Ashe—there’s none of that tension or wariness she’d held back in the alleyway behind the Striaton restaurant, and Yuri wonders if she had ever really adapted to life as a Rocket Pokémon.

“Hi, Sable,” Ashe coos, bending down to rub her head. He reaches into his jacket pocket and brings out an apple. Why the hell does he just carry apples around? Is that something all breeders do? “I’m sorry about last time. Archy feels bad about it too.”

Yuri scoffs. “As if. Since when has that dog regretted anything he did?”

“Don’t be mean,” Ashe scolds, but he obviously doesn’t mean it. Sable has happily taken the apple and is munching away, which Yuri sighs at. Didn’t he teach her not to accept food from strangers? Granted, Ashe isn’t much of a stranger, but still. “Your place is pretty nice, Yuri. Do you live with… someone else?”

There’s an odd tone to his voice—Yuri wonders if he’s reminiscing on when the two of them used to live together, along with Mother and Ashe’s two younger siblings. “Yeah, three old friends. They’re all out at work right now, though.” _Thank the gods,_ he mentally adds. He’d rather not let Ashe run into Balthus or Constance, both of whom will probably terrorize him by sheer virtue of having the personalities they were given, and Yuri can almost see the knowing looks Hapi would shoot his way every five minutes. “Let me grab the guy you’re all here for. Oh, you want breakfast or something?”

“Breakfast?” Ashe repeats, nonplussed.

Yuri heads back into his bedroom; Sunny follows at his heels, squeaking excitably, while Ashe hovers uncertainly by the doorway. “What’s with the surprise? I can be polite, you know. Unless you’ve got plans after this?” He plucks the Pokéball off his belt, hanging off a clothes rack, and lets the Murkrow out—he can’t fly just yet, wing bound as it is, but he does hop around in the room and caw noisily.

Ashe shakes his head. “I’m free the rest of the day. Ah, so this is the—”

He doesn’t get any further than that because when the Murkrow turns around and lands eyes on Ashe, he immediately screeches at the top of its lungs and leaps to stand between Ashe and Yuri, flapping his one good wing and ruffling what looks like every single one of his feathers. “What the—hey, calm down!” Yuri hisses, bending down to try and take the Murkrow in his hands before he can advance on Ashe. His wing may be broken, but he’s still got a perfectly good set of razor-sharp talons and a working beak. “Geez, what’s the matter with you?”

The Murkrow stops moving and jumping around, but he still leers at Ashe, cawing loudly. His good wing is still spread out to the side too, like he’s about to attempt flight… or, Yuri realizes, trying to make himself look bigger. More intimidating.

Ashe doesn’t look the least bit intimidated, though he has backed up a significant distance. “It looks like it registers me as a threat,” he says, somehow managing to sound perfectly calm. “Common behavior for an abused Pokémon. Did it, um, act like this with you too?”

Yuri frowns. “No, he was all nice and cute with me. Weren’t you?” He looks back down at the Murkrow, and mercifully enough he seems to calm down slightly, chirping as he nuzzles Yuri’s cheek with the flat of his beak. “See? He’s… wait a minute.”

Yuri almost hits himself from his own stupidity. If his theory about this Pokémon’s previous owner is correct (and it probably is, because he’s never wrong), then he should have known it’d be like this. “Actually, Ashe,” Yuri says, letting the Murkrow perch on his shoulder as he stands back up, “I think this guy was previously owned and trained by a Rocket member.”

He braces himself for a bit of surprise and shock, and probably a bit of anger or suspicion, but Ashe just hums thoughtfully. “That’s interesting. How come?”

“You, uh. You’re just gonna roll with that?”

Ashe shrugs. “I mean, when it comes to you, Yuri, I can’t really be surprised about anything anymore.” Of all things, he even smiles. “I thought I’d never see you again, but here we are, after almost ten years of being away from each other.”

“You’re too trusting for your own good,” Yuri sighs. _I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore._ “Whatever. Anyway, I just recognize some familiar traits, I guess…” It’s too much of a bother to explain everything, but even just how the Murkrow had materialized out of his Pokéball had made it instantly obvious: most, if not all, Rocket members trained their Pokémon to always come out of the ball silent, especially those trained for spying or espionage, and to immediately scan their surroundings as soon as they pop out. In Yuri’s opinion, the Murkrow had gotten way too comfortable around him way too quickly as soon as he saw the Meowth Rocket tattoo, but the behavior had been noticeable all the same.

And the intimidation tactic, while natural instinct for pretty much every Pokémon that feels threatened, had most likely been because the Murkrow had instantly noticed Ashe isn’t a Rocket, and is in a safe house.

“It’s fine, little guy,” Yuri murmurs, stroking the Murkrow’s head; he chirrups and leans into his touch. “Ashe is a friend. Ally. Umm… teammate. Whatever, you get it. Anyway, he won’t hurt you.”

The Murkrow gives Ashe another look, but eventually caws; he hops over to Ashe and chirps, fluffing his feathers and looking more curious than hostile this time. Ashe crouches down to stroke the Murkrow’s back, and while the Murkrow thankfully doesn’t lash out, Yuri really just wishes he’d wear _some_ protective gloves or something. “How have you lived this long as a breeder,” Yuri grumbles.

“What? He’s nice,” Ashe says, like the Murkrow he’s petting now isn’t the same Murkrow that had been this close to clawing his eyes out some two seconds ago. “Aren’t you going to give him a name?”

Yuri shakes his head. “I don’t plan on keeping him.”

He realizes his mistake not a second later—the Murkrow turns back to face Yuri again, now looking utterly devastated. He caws, the noise sounding oddly like a question, and hurries away from Ashe to hop over to Yuri instead, and, well, _great,_ now Yuri feels bad. “Oh, come on, don’t you have your old trainer?” Yuri asks, hoping both the nurse from the Center and Ashe had been wrong about the possibility of an abusive owner.

Once again, he’s proven wrong by the Murkrow drooping, its good wing actually falling far enough to touch the floor. “Okay, never mind, sorry,” Yuri sighs; he’s absolutely awful at communication, whether human or Pokémon. “Ashe, what do I do?” he hisses.

Ashe just blinks at him, looking entertained. “I don’t know, Yuri! You’re the one who helped the guy out, you’re in charge.”

“You are _no_ help.”

“Maybe…” Ashe looks thoughtful again. Yuri perks up in interest; his own Pokémon are pretty laidback, all things considered, and never really gave him much trouble when they were first caught (or obtained, in Lamia and Mara’s case), aside from Sunny for obvious reasons. But Ashe is a Pokémon breeder, and he’s probably had plenty of practice dealing with troublesome kids. “You could start with that breakfast you mentioned?”

“…Uh, what?” _That_ was the absolute last thing Yuri had been expecting.

Ashe just smiles innocently. “Injured Pokémon, especially Flying-types, get restless if they can’t go out or move around like they used to. Aren’t there any open-air breakfast places in Striaton?”

“Whoa, whoa. You sure have changed.” Yuri crosses his arms, the Murkrow now perched on Sunny’s head. “Since when did you get brave enough to ask people out on dates like that?”

“What—” Ashe flushes red as a Fire-type. “T-That wasn’t—I wasn’t a-asking you out! Don’t be silly, Yuri!”

“Okay, if you say so. You should be ashamed of yourself, you even went and used an injured Pokémon as your excuse to be alone with me…”

Striaton Gym does have an open-air area for its restaurant, but Yuri is also absolutely sick of that place, so he brings Ashe (and Sunny, and the Murkrow) over to a smaller, out-of-the-way café Constance absolutely adores. Yuri gets the omelette, Sunny gets the pancakes, Ashe gets what Yuri gets because he refuses to think for himself or whatever, and the Murkrow is fine with a plate of standard bird feed, no matter how much Yuri tries to convince him to eat something more filling.

“I was thinking of looking for the little guy’s old trainer,” Yuri muses aloud. Sunny’s pancakes had arrived first, and the Raichu is digging in like he hasn’t eaten in days. “Not necessarily to return him anymore, since it looks like Murkrow doesn’t want to go back anyway, but… it’s just been a while since I’ve met up with another Rocket.” He shrugs, deciding to conveniently leave out the fact that his three other roommates are previous Rockets too. “What do you think?”

Ashe is busy dabbing at the corners of Sunny’s mouth with a napkin to wipe off the syrup, and he responds without looking at Yuri. “I don’t know. You should do what you think is best.”

“You could stand to sound a little less passive-aggressive, dove.”

“D—” Ashe chokes on what looks like his own saliva, and he downs the glass of service water before speaking again, though his cheeks are still a flaming red. “D-Dove?”

“Yeah, like Pidove?” Yuri gestures at a convenient pair of Pidove on the asphalt, pecking at the ground. “You kinda look like them. Short and gray.” _And cute,_ he decides against adding. He likes seeing Ashe embarrassed, but even that would be too direct… and… wait a minute. Yuri hides a frown. It’s fun teasing Ashe, but when had he ever actually enjoyed seeing Ashe… flustered…?

Ashe coughs, clears his throat. “In case you forgot, I _am_ taller than you now, you know.”

Yuri hadn’t forgotten, but he waves Ashe’s response away in the hopes not acknowledging that information will keep it from being real. “ _Anyway,_ I’m a little surprised you’re all buddy-buddy with me now. Just a week or two ago your dog was about to bite my head off.”

Ashe sighs. “I’m sorry, I really am. You know I’d never actually get him to attack anyone. Especially you, Yuri.”

The last three words are spoken so lowly that Yuri almost doesn’t hear them, but he’s nothing if not attentive. “That so?” he says. “What if I’m actually still a big bad Rocket at heart? Would you be able to handle it if I up and stole all your Pokémon now?”

“You don’t scare me,” Ashe huffs. “And I’ve made up my mind. I’m never doubting you again, so you might as well get used to me trusting you from now on.”

Had Ashe specifically designed those words to pierce Yuri straight through the heart? It sounds impossible, but that’s exactly how it feels, and it takes every little bit of Yuri’s training over the past few years to keep his neutral expression from cracking and revealing how he’s been thrown so off-kilter, the world almost spins. “Uh… right,” he manages, at length, averting his gaze so Ashe doesn’t see anything incriminating in his eyes. “That’s, uh… real bold of you, dove. But why?” Yuri presses, pulling himself together enough to lean across the table and meet Ashe’s eyes again. “Just ‘cause we used to be friends doesn’t mean I won’t betray your trust now.”

Ashe visibly swallows, but he stares right back, almost defiantly. Yuri suppresses the shudder that threatens to run down his spine at the look in those pale-green eyes. “He won’t make it obvious, but Sunny likes you.”

“I… What.”

“He cares a lot about you, Yuri.” Ashe glances over at Sunny himself, who’s still stuffing his face full of pancakes, blissfully ignorant. “I still don’t really know what happened to have you two see each other again, but… anyway, it was pretty fun being with him and introducing him to the rest of my Pokémon, but whenever I mentioned your name he’d get all happy and jumpy. Yesterday he was sulking around, which is why I thought it’d be nice if we could come visit.”

Yuri tries for a scoff, but he can’t do more than exhale heavily. “He can’t possibly have _missed_ me. Little monster’s done nothing but terrorize me for years.”

“But he did,” Ashe insists, smiling. “That’s why I can’t keep him forever. And that’s also why I was thinking about if we could, um… I don’t know, let him have time with both of us? A week with me and then a week with you, for example.” He leans back and shrugs, and there’s an adorable little blush on his cheeks that only makes his freckles stand out more. “Or just whenever he wants to see us. We don’t live that far apart, so it shouldn’t be a trouble.”

“A week with me,” Yuri slowly repeats, “and a week with you.”

Ashe nods. “Or maybe in three-day intervals instead. I dunno, it was just a thought.”

Does Ashe even hear himself right now? Is he just doing this to mess with Yuri, or does he really, genuinely, sincerely have no idea what he’s saying? “Right, okay,” Yuri agrees anyway, looking over at Sunny. This definitely doesn’t seem at all like a divorced couple discussing how to spend time with their child. Maybe Hapi made a point with that Pikachu comment. “Who should he be registered under, though? Can’t exactly put both our names in his info.”

Ashe reddens. “There’s, um, actually a way to do that, but it’s only for m-married—uh, anyway, it shouldn’t matter, right? He’s registered under you and so far there hasn’t been a problem, so, uh, it’s whatever…”

Yuri grins. Now this is more along the lines of what he’d expected. “Has anyone told you how adorable you are when you’re shy, dove?”

“ _Yuri._ ”

They finish up their breakfast—Constance was right, that _was_ the best omelette Yuri’s ever had, this place would put Striaton Restaurant Gym out of business if it got better publicity—and, after a brief discussion, Ashe lets out Archy. The Arcanine sniffs Yuri once, then licks his palm in greeting with a low woof. “No hard feelings,” Yuri mumbles. “If you cared at all, anyway…”

Predictably enough, Archy ignores him—for such a loving Pokémon, he sure hates Yuri—and, after listening to Ashe’s instructions, bends down to give the Murkrow a tentative sniff instead. The Murkrow ruffles his feathers again, but stays still long enough for Archy to get a good scent; then, with another bark, he sets off towards the direction of Route 3.

“Is it from Pinwheel Forest?” Ashe asks, hurrying to catch up to his Arcanine before he runs off without him. Archy barks an affirmation. “Alright, remember the scent, okay? We’ll fly there to save time.” He taps Archy’s forehead with his Pokéball to return him, then looks back towards Yuri. “Yep, Pinwheel. It’s a little big, but Archy can navigate his way through anywhere with no problem. You have a flier?”

Yuri feels bad having Mara fly around when the sun is just starting to intensify, but there’s no way he’s about to say no. “Sure, yeah.” He sends the Crobat out, and Mara winces but doesn’t complain at the heat. “Sorry, man,” Yuri mumbles, letting Mara clamp down on his shoulders while Ashe sends out his own Pokémon. “It’s just over to Pinwheel again, a little past Nacrene. Okay, Murkrow, hop on, I bet you wanna go flying again.”

He gets an excitable caw for his troubles, and the Murkrow scrambles up to let Yuri cradle him in his arms like a baby. Sunny looks put out and waddles over to Ashe instead, who laughs at the pout on the Raichu’s face. “Yuri, you’re way too mean to him.”

“What? If he wants to be coddled, you’re just the right person to go to,” Yuri remarks, looking over at Ashe…

And, okay, he was kind of expecting Mothra. The Butterfree isn’t too strong, but Ashe had mentioned her being able to carry people around, so he assumed she would be his flier. If not, maybe a Pidgeot he caught back in Kanto or a Swellow from Hoenn—Hapi had its pre-evolution, a tiny little Taillow that Yuri couldn’t hold himself from cooing over whenever Hapi brought it out from the PC to train up. Or maybe an Unfezant, the fully-evolved form of Pidove and the most common Flying-type in Unova.

Nope. He gets a big, blue, fluffy thing.

“What the hell is that,” Yuri blurts out, too bewildered to bother being more polite. Manners have never suited him anyway, and Ashe would be one of the first people to know about that. “That… That’s not native to Kanto, is it? I would have known if it were!”

Ashe has the gall to _laugh_ at his astonishment. “Relax, he isn’t. This is Altair, my Altaria. He’s from Hoenn, but even then they’re pretty rare, so I’m not surprised you’ve never seen one of them. But he’s really nice! Altair, say hi.”

The… Altaria… chirps at him, extending its long neck to bump cheeks with Yuri, who is still too shocked to move away. What’s with its wings? They look like they’re made of clouds. _Are_ they made of clouds? Is Ashe going to _ride_ that… cloud-bird thing? Won’t he just fall straight through its cloudy body? Yuri is getting a headache the longer he looks at this. He really should have taken up Hapi’s invitation to go to Hoenn with her, if only to go sightseeing and maybe prepare himself for weird sights like a bird made of clouds.

Well, it kind of suits Ashe, though. Nice and cute. That doesn’t stop Yuri from eyeing both Ashe and Altair as they fly over Striaton and Nacrene, although he’s not sure if it’s just because he still can’t quite wrap his head around the existence of a cloud-bird or if he’s worried Ashe will plunge down onto a random building any second now.

They touch down just outside Pinwheel Forest, and Ashe lets Archy out again to track the scent. The Murkrow clicks his beak and shifts uncomfortably on where he’s perched on Yuri’s shoulder. “Wanna go back in the ball?” Yuri asks under his breath, reaching up to stroke the Murkrow’s head with two fingers. “If you don’t wanna see your old trainer…”

The Murkrow looks hesitant, but shakes his head quickly, feathers ruffling.

Yuri exhales. “Alright, you suit yourself.” He moves to pet the back of the Murkrow’s neck instead, wondering just how they’re going to find one specific person in this maze of a forest. Archy may be good, but even then—

He pauses. Hesitates. “Murkrow, can I take a look at your back for a second?” Yuri whispers, careful not to let Ashe, walking ahead of him next to Archy, hear. The Murkrow nods jerkily, and Yuri is immensely glad he knows enough not to make noise when his trainer is being quiet. He takes the Murkrow in his hands, and he doesn’t even need to push stray feathers away to see what he had felt with his fingers.

Birds grow their feathers back just like human hair, but when the underlying skin structures are too badly damaged…

“Yuri?” Ashe calls, and Yuri snaps back to attention. “You okay? Is something wrong?”

“No, no, I’m good.” He swallows back the shake in his voice, lets the Murkrow climb back up onto his shoulder. Even now, with his thoughts all scrambled up, he can’t help but notice how Ashe always seems to be worrying about him. “Are we getting any closer?”

Ashe grins. “Yeah, it’s just a bit further now!”

“Okay. Great.”

_Not great. Not great at all._

They emerge out into a small clearing at what looks like the end of the ridiculous Pinwheel Forest labyrinth—Archy circles the field, sniffing and woofing, then returns to Ashe’s side with a low growl. “So they’re somewhere here?” Ashe murmurs, feeding Archy some dog treats from his pocket. Seriously, does Ashe have every sort of food imaginable in those pockets of his? “Why would they be hiding here anyway?”

Yuri sighs. He’d hoped it wouldn’t have had to come to this, but the only thing that can smoke out a Rocket is, well… another Rocket. “Get out,” he snaps, almost surprised at how his voice rings out through the clearing. He places a hand on one of the Pokéballs at his belt, frantically wracking his head for what little he can remember. “You’re doing a fucking awful job at hiding. I can see you from right here.”

Ashe blinks, looking dumbfounded. “Um—Yuri? Wait, who do you see?”

“Stay back.”

“What—”

A red-orange blur speeds out from a gap between trees, but Yuri is ready—he flings Mara’s Pokéball out again, and the Crobat comes out already firing a Cross Poison attack. The impact sends the Parasect tumbling backwards with a pitiful squeak, rolling onto the mushroom on its back before it hastily rights itself and leers out at their group, chittering loudly and clicking its claws. Ashe has backed away while Archy takes a step forward, growling lowly and tensed to fight, while Yuri has to gather the Murkrow in his arms to keep him from running out into the field. “That all you got?” Yuri shouts—Mara flits back to hover beside his head. “Could’ve sworn you looked way stronger when we first met!”

The Parasect seems to take offense at that, judging by how it screeches and charges them again, but it isn’t any more threatening the second time around—Mara intercepts it again, pushing it back with an Air Slash that opens up cuts all over its body. Yuri almost laughs out loud—after three years in Johto, fending for himself in Sinnoh, and then dealing with Gym trainers in Unova, he’s starting to realize just why Rocket had once been taken down by a fifteen-year-old.

To be honest, he’d had a wide variety of people in mind. Rocket was chock-full of outlaws and criminals, almost all of whom treated Pokémon like tools and weren’t above the usage of the various restraining collars. If Yuri’s guessing based on the damaged feathers around the Murkrow’s neck alone, he’d never be able to track every single suspect down for an interrogation.

But Yuri likes to think there are things he’ll never forget, no matter how many years pass: how Sunny’s Pokéball felt in his hand when he first threw it, rescuing Sable from a pond and watching the tiny Sandshrew follow him around, the shadows on Ashe’s gaunt face when Yuri met him for the first time.

The Parasect at that man’s side, some ten years ago, deep in Rock Tunnel.

Mara flaps higher up in the sky, clearly readying another Air Slash, but the Parasect disappears in a beam of red light, followed by a low chuckle that Yuri has to keep from wincing at. “Looks like you sure have grown, kid,” that voice, snakeskin-smooth and thicker than Yuri’s best-worst lie, murmurs. “Been a while, eh?”

The man steps out from the trees, a Raticate at his side. Yuri counts the Pokéballs on his belt—three, leaving only one more unknown variable—before he looks up at the man’s face. He, too, is probably something Yuri can never forget, no matter how much he wants to, if only because this was the man who had led him down the life of a Rocket. “Long time no see.”

Isn’t it funny, until now, that Yuri still doesn’t know the recruiting agent’s name?

He hears a _thump_ behind him, and Yuri turns to see Ashe on the grass, green eyes wide and distant like he’s seeing something else, seeing the man in front of him, not in a forested clearing but in a dark, dank cave in Kanto, just seconds before a brand-new Pokéball was snatched off of his belt. “Y-You,” Ashe breathes, “you’re the—y-you’re the—”

The man steps forward, looking faintly curious. “Hm? Do I know you? You weren’t a Rocket.” Then his eyes glimmer in realization at the snarling Arcanine by Ashe’s side. “Ah, I remember now. Rock Tunnel, right?”

Archy pounces, too fast for Yuri to try and call him back—and he gets close, so close, close enough that Yuri almost relaxes until the earth rumbles beneath them and a jagged rock shoots out of nowhere to slam into Archy’s side. “ _Archy!_ ” Ashe screams, terror running through his voice—and Yuri doesn’t know what to do, can’t think outside of the fear in Ashe’s face, sees that fear reflected in the face of a smaller, shorter, younger Ashe when Archy had only been a Growlithe and Sunny had only been a Pikachu and there had been a Rhydon in between them, until Ashe was left alone in the cave with only two Pokéballs on his belt.

Yuri grabs Archy’s Pokéball and returns the Arcanine before he can get any more injured. The Rhydon—no, the _Rhyperior_ stomps out from behind a thick clump of trees, a distinct, familiar grinding noise coming from the cannons on its palms. Yuri takes a step back, returning Mara before the Rhyperior can lock onto him as its next target; he’d observed plenty of Sinnohan Pokémon through the windows of Snowpoint Gym, and he’s seen his fair share of Rhyperiors used to counter the Ice-types there. The Gym Leader, Candice, had devised her own counter-counter attacks, but Shiva’s claws would do little against the Rhyperior’s rock-hard hide.

He swallows. Ashe _must_ have another Pokémon he can use to fight, but Yuri’s not cruel enough to force him into a battle now, when he’s still staring across the clearing at the man in disbelief. It’s risky, but Yuri’s nothing but an expert at knowing when to retreat. “Khione!”

The whole forest seems to drop several degrees as soon as the Pokéball opens and the Froslass emerges, floating in the air, her eyes flashing like ice crystals. The Rhyperior, along with its trainer, has the audacity to _snort_ —Shiva would have been utterly furious and probably would have rushed the Rhyperior without another thought, but Khione only narrows her eyes and scoffs right back at them. Queen of derision, Yuri fondly thinks. “Frost Breath!”

“Shouting out commands? How soft have you gotten?” the man taunts, and Yuri has to hold back a curse. He had caught Shiva and Khione in Sinnoh, after leaving Rocket—there hadn’t been a need to train them in hand signals.

Yuri catches the man’s wrist flicking and the Rhyperior moving into some sort of attack stance, but his brain muddles over and refuses to remember what move that sign may stand for. It doesn’t matter—Khione’s smart enough to move out of the way before the Rhyperior can fire more rock missiles from its claws, but she’s so frail that one hit and Yuri’s certain she’ll be down for the count. “Over its eyes!” Yuri shouts. The man still has his Raticate at his side, and Yuri knows that thing is fast enough to cross the clearing over to their side in speeds too fast for Yuri to follow. If it tries stealing any of their Pokémon, or even hurting any of them… hurting Ashe…

Khione swoops up, casting her Frost Breath over the Rhyperior’s eyes—it growls and stumbles back when the ice immediately hardens on its face, obscuring its vision, though probably not for long. Khione was Yuri’s strongest fighter back in Sinnoh, but in Unova’s warmer climate, her attacks don’t have quite the same potency. Yuri follows the man’s hand and scowls when he recognizes this one. “Khione, move back!”

She does, but not fast enough—she lets out a shrill cry when her back slams into a floating rock behind her, and the rest of the stones from the Stealth Rock attack immediately home in on her body. Yuri returns her just in time, right before the jagged rocks all slam into each other at once and explode in a burst of ultra-fine debris. Stealth Rock operates on sensing movement in the surroundings, like homing missiles—Yuri should have predicted this, he’s seen Ice-types in Snowpoint Gym go down just from this setup over and over again. And meanwhile the Rhyperior is already beginning to claw at its eyes, the ice cracking and ready to break at any moment. What the hell can Yuri do against a Pokémon with impossible defenses…?

“You know there’s no reason for us to be fighting, right?” the man across them drawls. Yuri has never wanted to punch someone so bad. “I’m not even here ‘cause of you, kid. I just happened to be in the area for business.”

Yuri spits on the ground. “Don’t give me your bullshit. You disappeared from Rocket after we broke up in Kanto, but I never forgot about you. Have you just been poaching independently all this time, you damn traitor?”

“What, you mean most poachers don’t work better on their own?”

“You fucking…” Rocket valued loyalty, above all else. They may have acted like a corporation but in the end it was just one big mafia group, spread out across the region and all working together, for both individual and collective gain. And like all mafia, there was nothing worse than a traitor who left without so much as a parting letter. Yuri’s always looked the other way whenever a deserter was punished, but now… shit, it’s not like he can do much in this situation anyway. The Rhyperior is going to recover its sight any second now. And what then? No self-respecting Rocket—or criminal, in general—would just let a witness go free.

The man lifts his shoulders in a shrug, as if abandoning Rocket was nothing more than something he couldn’t help. “Come on, kid. You should know I did what I had to then, just like you.”

Guilt lances through Yuri’s chest, colder than any ice. He knows—of course he knows. He’d probably seen Yuri and Ashe together at some point on that day after Rock Tunnel and put the pieces together. If the man were a different person, someone more sick and twisted and sadistic, would he have—would he have—

A beam of red light interrupts his thoughts—something zips through the field, crossing it faster than even the man’s Raticate might have moved, and then… disappears. Yuri blinks once, twice, several times, and only after another few seconds of startled silence does the thing appear again, followed immediately by the Rhyperior roaring and crumpling down to one knee. “What the…?” Yuri mutters. There’s a somewhat familiar-looking Pokémon floating behind the Rhyperior, giggling to itself. Had it come out from… _inside_ the Rhyperior?

“Saci.” Ashe’s voice is a knife, cutting through the tension in the air. “Toxic.”

 _On that giant Rock-type?_ Yuri wants to shout, but the words are caught in his throat. He’s never heard Ashe sound like this, voice low and dark and the complete difference of everything Yuri’s ever known. He’s heard him miserable and furious, but this terrifying anger is something else entirely. He turns back to the man instead, and it’s easy to remember the sign for _Protect—_

But he grins at how the man’s face falls. The Rhyperior hadn’t managed to remove all the ice—there’s no way it can see its trainer’s hand signal.

Yuri recognizes the Pokémon now: it’s a Whimsicott, the little shits that always slip in the apartment somehow and scatter their fluff all over the place before taking off and leaving their mess for Yuri to painstakingly clean up. Had Ashe called it Saci? Yuri can’t get a better look at it before it giggles and disappears again, zipping inside—yep, Yuri is definitely sure about it now—the Rhyperior’s body. “What the hell?” he whispers, glancing over at Ashe, but Ashe doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Rhyperior, move!” the man shouts, evidently having given up on subtlety. “Try Protect! Hurry up!”

But it’s obviously too late—Saci reemerges back on Ashe and Yuri’s side just as the Rhyperior falls on its stomach to lie flat on the ground, probably crushing every plant underneath it. Even from here Yuri can smell the stink of poison, a stench he’s long grown accustomed to after living with Lamia and Mara for years, and it’s clear the Rhyperior is in no state to fight, especially after Saci uses a Giga Drain unprompted. The Rhyperior roars, the nearby trees rustling noisily, and finally the trainer returns it without another word.

Saci floats over next to Ashe’s head, and Ashe rubs its head gently. It reminds Yuri far too much of how his Jigglypuff used to hover beside him, too. “Good girl,” Ashe murmurs. Somehow, even in this situation, he still finds the time to feed the Whimsicott a treat before returning her to her Pokéball. “Yuri, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.” Yuri swallows. Poison is powerful, sure, but for _one_ Toxic attack to almost completely incapacitate that huge Rhyperior? Looks like Ashe hadn’t completed two League Challenges through sheer luck alone. “Thanks. Are _you_ alright?”

Ashe takes a deep breath. “I’m good.” He clenches his fists at his sides, and Yuri realizes he’s holding a Pokéball in one—judging by how it crackles and sparks dangerously, he’s fairly sure it can only be holding Sunny. When Ashe realized the danger, had he reacted on reflex to return Sunny to keep him from being injured…?

The man clicks his tongue, and Yuri is abruptly reminded of where they are. “Guess you two aren’t the same scared kids from back then after all,” he says. His Raticate is at his side still, but Yuri doubts they’ll be battling again—not only do they have the advantage of numbers, he remembers the man had trained that Pokémon (still a Rattata, then) purely for speed and stealing. Shiva would laugh in its face. “So, what? Why’d you even come looking for me? Did you hear about me on the news and decide to act the part of a good citizen?”

 _The news…?_ Shit, _now_ Yuri remembers—when he’d been in the Pokémon Center waiting on the Murkrow’s treatment, the TV there had been on the news channel, talking about some runaway poacher. Is that person and this man one and the same? “I’m not here to arrest you or whatever. I’m just here because you left your Pokémon in the forest.”

The man actually looks _confused._ “My Pokémon?”

The Murkrow takes that as his cue to squawk, hopping off Yuri’s shoulder to land lightly on the grass, then hop and stumble his way towards the man. “Wait—Murkrow!” Yuri hisses, but it’s no use—the Murkrow looks _excited,_ cawing and crowing and flapping his good wing.

“Oh,” the man says, blandly, when the Murkrow comes to a stop at his feet. He’s looking up at him, from what Yuri can tell, and though he can’t see the Murkrow’s face he’s almost certain his eyes are shining in hope and loyalty. “Seriously… I only caught it because I needed a flier and a messenger,” the man grumbles, looking unamused. His Raticate squeaks as if watching a very entertaining show. “I did my best to train it, but it’s fucking useless in battle. I’m guessing you found it with its bad wing and brought it to the Center, eh?”

Yuri bristles. “What’s wrong with that?”

The man shakes his head. “What sort of Rocket does that? Helping out some poor, injured Pokémon? You must be so _proud_ of yourself.” Then, too fast for Yuri to follow, his leg moves in a swift kick—the Murkrow screeches as it goes tumbling on the ground, loose feathers flying everywhere. “What use do I have for a weak Pokémon that can’t even fight?”

“ _Murkrow—_ ” Yuri dives towards the shaking bird—the wrap on his wing has been jostled far too much, and he doesn’t need to listen to its weak caws to know it must hurt. “You—oh, how fucking dare you!” he snarls, gathering the Murkrow up in his arms. He should return him to his ball, he should, but Yuri’s hands are shaking too badly for him to feel out the right one on his belt. “Look at him! He was hurt and abandoned by _you_ and he still wanted to see you! Pokémon aren’t fucking tools, they’ve got minds and hearts and—and their own languages, and—” _and memories, and families, and homes, and other people and Pokémon they love—_

He’s not aware he’s staring down the barrel of a gun until he hears the _bang_ of the gunshot, which is funny, considering how many times Yuri’s been in this exact scenario—on the ground, cowering away from a police officer or a Rocket superior. The difference, this time, is that there’s no way out for him.

…is what he thinks until someone is shoving him to the side, just before the bullet would have found home in his head.

Perhaps in a more suitably dramatic novel or movie, it would have been Ashe who got shot instead, so he could die a martyr and Yuri could go on living a borrowed life. But this is no novel, no movie, just the three of them in some nondescript forest clearing, and for the first few years of their life Ashe has grown up the same way as Yuri, tucked away in the shadows and streets, and his body still remembers how to avoid a bullet.

They topple onto the grass together, Ashe atop Yuri, the bullet whizzing by and slamming into an innocent tree instead. For a moment they’re so near it feels like they’re sharing the same air, and Yuri blinks, slowly, at how those pale-green eyes look up close. A ridiculous thought worms its way into his head: _He really does have the same freckles._

And then Ashe is scrambling to get off of him, narrowly avoiding another bullet that would have blown his head off. “Yuri, get up!” he shouts, yanking Yuri’s arm with such strength he nearly dislocates Yuri’s shoulder. Then, to the man, “Quit it! What’s with you? There’s no need for us to _kill_ each other!”

“Even if you want to?” the man taunts. He doesn’t fire again, but he doesn’t lower his gun either. “I saw the look in your eyes just a second ago, kid. You remember everything too, huh? Can’t underestimate you guys’ memories.”

Yuri looks at Ashe’s face like he might find what the man is talking about, and to his shock he does: Ashe’s eyes are dark, his scowl deep, hatred practically radiating from his being. “I’m not like you,” he hisses. “I hate you, and everything you did to both me and Yuri, but I’m not going to kill you for it. Neither of us deserve that.”

“Is that what you think?” the man turns to face Yuri. “What about you? I know you remember how they treated deserters in Rocket.”

His tone is light and his Raticate is back in its ball, but he’s still holding his gun—Yuri’s not about to be doing anything without getting rid of that first. He meets Ashe’s eyes, and Ashe nods. Yuri would really rather not, and he’s certain Ashe feels the same, but this is the easiest and fastest way to get the guy on the ground. “Sunny!” Ashe calls, throwing the Pokéball in his hand. “Thunder Wave!”

Yuri is honestly expecting a full-blown Discharge attack, like what happens every time Sunny loses control and goes on a furious rampage, but instead the Raichu generates the most perfect Thunder Wave Yuri has ever damn seen in his life. The man drops to try and avoid it, but he isn’t the real target anyway—the arc of electricity zips out and sparks the gun out of the man’s grip, sending it tumbling to the ground. Yuri is running in a flash, grabbing the gun off the grass before the man can reach for it, then knees the man in the stomach to climb over him, jabbing the gun to his forehead. “Stay the _fuck_ down,” Yuri hisses. “Is this the best you can do? Pathetic. This is why you train _with_ your Pokémon, dumb fuck.”

The man actually _laughs._ “Ooh, how _scary,_ kid’s all grown up and knows how to use a gun now. Or do you? I heard from some old friends that big bad Leclerc never used up a bullet in his life. But you’re a Rocket, aren’t you? Loyal to the end, just like that stupid little bird. Go ahead and show me what a real Rocket’s like.”

The gun is cold in his hand. Yuri has to use up every bit of energy in his body to keep himself from shaking, because the man would definitely feel it and taunt him all the more, and that’s the last thing Yuri needs right now. Should he do it? _Can_ he do it? He had only ever held guns a few, pitiful times throughout his life, and the man is right—even after all this time he still hasn’t had the heart to shoot anybody, even if just to incapacitate them. It always felt too final, too _permanent_ —if they bled out to death, he would still have killed them. If they couldn’t get to a Pokémon Center on time, he would still have killed them.

He almost wants to laugh now, too. Why is it someone like Yuri—the street kid who grew drunk on money and riches, the ruthless, merciless Rocket member who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted—who cares so much about killing? He told himself a long time ago that he would step on anyone who got in his way, and he likes to think he’s upheld that principle since then, but only an idiot like himself would actually believe that. Balthus, Constance, and Hapi all slowed him down in the beginning—Balthus didn’t think fast enough, Constance was too loud, Hapi didn’t put enough effort. He should have left them behind, should have requested to be assigned to another squad. Even as a rookie he had ascended quickly through the ranks and gained the favor of a few superiors; they wouldn’t have refused him.

But he stayed. Helped them. Trained them. Why? Yuri told himself it was because he’d seen their potential, knew what they could be if he just put in the work. What a shitty lie. He was just lonely. He just wanted friends. He just wanted other kids who had been with him when they were scared speechless, when they had given their Pokémon away.

He could have ignored Showers. He could have left the Murkrow in the forest. He could have called the Pokémon Center and gotten them to send a team into the forest instead. He could have released the Murkrow as soon as he got it back from the nurse.

He could kill this man. He _should_ kill this man. He’s one insignificant life among billions, and no one would miss him either.

_Loyal to the end._

Yuri stands up and throws the gun behind him. “I’m no Rocket,” he says. He stamps on the man’s wrist before he can grab a Pokéball off his belt, then delivers a swift kick to the side of his head. He falls unconscious with a choked groan and not another word.

“Yuri—”

“I’m fine.” Yuri dusts his pants off and backs away slowly, making sure the man isn’t getting up anytime soon before turning to look back at Ashe. Sunny is at his side, cheeks still sparking and eyes still narrowed. “Sorry you had to see that,” he mutters. “Wanna go give him your own kick?”

Ashe shakes his head with a small, strained laugh. “No, thanks. More importantly, the Murkrow…”

“Shit,” Yuri sighs, taking the Murkrow back in his arms. He twitters faintly, so at least he’s still alive—considering this little bird isn’t exactly the most durable, Yuri had feared for the worst. “You alright, Murkrow? I’ll bring you back in the ball first, it should hurt less in there—”

The Murkrow interrupts him with a squawk, one wing flapping weakly, and somehow Yuri already knows what he’s worried about. “That’s guy’s not your trainer anymore,” he mumbles, stroking his back, fingers brushing over the damaged feathers around his neck. “It’s me. Okay? I’ll take care of you from now on. So don’t go running back to him, you hear me?”

A soft, sad chirp.

Yuri closes his eyes. “He used you and abandoned you when you weren’t useful anymore.” Had anyone in Rocket actually, genuinely cared about each other? Had they all been a pack of stray dogs, a flock of wild birds, who had banded together just to take revenge on the society that had treated them like eyesores, kicked them to the asphalt and thrown them away? “There’s no use going back to him, Murkrow. He doesn’t want you back, and you’ll only get hurt again.”

The Murkrow is quiet. He doesn’t fight back when Yuri presses his Pokéball to his crest, and he disappears in a dull swirl of red light.

Yuri’s seen that look in the Murkrow’s eyes one too many times to count: the conflicting hope and despair, the stubborn, flickering loyalty, the light of wonder at a new world that had long since been dimmed and darkened by everything else those eyes had seen. Yuri first saw it reflected back at him in the mirror, the night he gave Rou and Tremper away to the Rockets, and now it’s all he ever sees when he looks at himself in the mornings.

“Yuri.” Ashe lays a hand on Yuri’s own, and it takes Yuri a minute to realize he’s shaking, badly, like his body had finally broken down on its own. “You were really cool back there.”

Yuri inhales, exhales. “Didn’t anyone teach you flattery gets you nowhere, dove?”

“It’s not flattery. I mean it.” Ashe swallows. He’s nearer than necessary again, but Yuri doesn’t push him away—doesn’t want to push him away. Sunny is at their feet beside them, looking bewildered. “Are you really alright? I—I’ve never even held a gun before. I can’t imagine how it must feel.”

“I told you, I’m fine.” Yuri breathes again, breathes and breathes and thanks the gods he’s never had to stop anyone from doing the same. “Ashe. You remember when we met back up again, and you said you couldn’t take Sunny until you knew where he got the scars around his neck from?”

Sunny perks up at his name, squeaking in interest. Ashe’s face flickers in confusion first before realization hits. “Yeah, I remember. Why…?”

“It was from a restraining collar. A grounding one, specifically.” Yuri crouches down to be next to Sunny and Ashe follows, eyes wide. “When we were first defeated in Kanto, we fled to Goldenrod in Johto and transferred our inventory from Sevii Islands there. Sunny was one of the Pokémon that we had meant to sell somewhere else, but a different Rocket member decided to take him instead. And Sunny didn’t like following orders, obviously, so they used a grounding collar, and you know how those chafe.”

The surprise on Ashe’s face fades to something more like resignment. He coaxes Sunny to sit on his lap and the Raichu does, of course he does, he’s never listened to Yuri but he’d do anything for Ashe. Yuri can’t even blame him. “Then…” Ashe sighs, gently stroking the fur on the back of Sunny’s neck. “What happened?”

“I didn’t see him again until three years after, when we were taken down again. He was in a safe house in Olivine this time, where we stored some extra supplies in case of emergencies. He was too much of a pain for his old trainer, so he was going to be sold to a collector.” Yuri can laugh at the memory now—that collector probably would’ve been electrocuted into ashes, considering Sunny hadn’t been fitted with a collar when Yuri had first let him out of the ball. “I took his Pokéball and made a break for Sinnoh. That’s where I spent the past two or three years before finally moving here with some friends.”

For a while they’re silent—it occurs to Yuri that if the man behind them regains consciousness, very little is stopping him from getting up soundlessly, picking up the gun lying a few ways away, and shooting both their heads off, but frankly Yuri cannot give less of a shit right now. Then Ashe asks, “I appreciate it, but why are you telling me this?”

Yuri shrugs. “Not something a Rocket would do, huh?”

“T-That’s—”

“I’m kidding.” Yuri grins. No matter what, stirring Ashe up never gets old. “I guess it’s just… you heard what the guy said back there. I did what I had to, but I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve never really been a Rocket, same way I’ve never really been a League Challenger like you.”

Yuri’s never really _been_ anything—he’s never really been a waiter in Striaton Restaurant, he’s never really been any of the jobs he worked back at Snowpoint, he’s never really been a Rocket nor a League Challenger nor anything. In the end he’s still just the same street rat from all those years ago, watching his mother work day in and day out trying to make ends meet while she reassured him everything would be fine in the future. He’s still the same kid who had helped Ashe hide from a furious merchant, and later on Ashe shared the apple he’d stolen with Yuri as thanks. Maybe Ashe has changed, but Yuri’s still the same he’s ever been.

The League Challenge, Rocket, odd jobs in Snowpoint, working in Striaton—they were all just means to that better future Mother had used to promise him whenever they both went to bed hungry. The only difference now is that it wasn’t just the two of them in that future he wants, but five.

“I thought of you, you know,” Yuri says. “When I joined Rocket.” _Loyal to the end,_ the man had said, but Yuri was Ashe’s friend before he was a Rocket. “I wanted more money, for myself and my mom and—for you. For your siblings. That’s all.”

“Yuri,” Ashe whispers, so soft the rustling of leaves could drown him out.

Yuri stands up. “I should go. I—Murkrow—he needs the Center. I’ll… see you, dove,” he says, lamely, and he’s just released Mara before he feels something tugging at his pants leg. It’s almost embarrassing how he can’t quite keep the surprise off his face when he sees it’s Sunny, stubby paws clinging to his ankle. “Hey, let go, you’re making my exit look even lamer than it already is.”

“Rai,” Sunny whimpers, so soft, so _sad,_ and Yuri’s brain feels like it needs to reboot to process the situation. _Don’t go,_ it sounds like he’s saying, like he’s afraid he’ll open his eyes again and be alone in a Rocket warehouse, grounding collar locked around his neck.

Yuri swallows back a thick lump in his throat. “I’m not leaving forever, you big baby. Fine, see you _both,_ ” he amends. Sunny squeaks softly but lets go, paws dropping back down to his sides. Yuri tries to tell himself not to but he dares to look up at Ashe’s face anyway, something in his chest twisting when he sees those green eyes meeting his own. Ten years. Ten _years._ “Any last words?” he tries to joke.

Ashe grabs his wrist, gripping harder than Yuri had expected, and for a second he lets himself hope Ashe will leave bruises on his skin. “I,” Ashe begins. “Yuri,” he starts again. “Yuri…”

For a second Yuri lets himself hope: that maybe Ashe will pull him back, that maybe they will be as close as they had been earlier, when their chests had touched and the air had swirled between them, indecisive on which set of lungs to enter. For a second Yuri hopes in a way he has not hoped in years.

But Ashe lets go, and whatever atmosphere had settled upon them disappears, whisked away by the wind. “Get to the Center,” he says. “We’ll see you soon.”

 _Soon._ There’s that promise of a future again, a future Yuri still thinks of, still hopes for.

“Yeah,” he says, and then Mara is lifting him into the air, flying him back to Striaton.

The Murkrow is fine. They give him the standard healing, readjust the wrap on his broken wing, then return him to Yuri in under half an hour. Yuri keeps him in his Pokéball on the walk to the apartment, then lets him out when they’re back in his bedroom.

“How are you feeling, little guy?” Yuri asks, grabbing some of Hapi’s bird feed (it’s only a matter of time before she finds out and throttles him, so he makes a mental note to buy some when he hits the grocery) and letting the Murkrow peck at the food, though he does so with less energy than usual. “Yeah, probably still feel like shit. Take your time.”

The Murkrow caws, low and miserable.

“I can set you free if you want,” Yuri offers. He puts the bag of bird feed away and sits on the edge of his bed instead, the Murkrow perched on the windowsill. “If you don’t want to be a trainer Pokémon anymore, that is. Or if you just don’t want to be _my_ Pokémon, which I totally understand. I wouldn’t want to be my Pokémon either.”

He had babbled a bit there, but the Murkrow doesn’t call him out on it, thankfully—not that Yuri knows how he would do that, but whatever. Instead the Murkrow just keeps on eating, and when the little plate is clean, he hops over towards Yuri and nuzzles his cheek with the flat of his beak again. “Okay, so I guess that’s a yes,” Yuri murmurs, his chest the warmest it’s been in, well, ten years. “I’m not gonna make you fight unless you want to, Murkrow. That’s a promise.”

A small but happy squawk.

“I guess just calling you _Murkrow_ isn’t gonna cut it, though.” Yuri strokes the back of his neck again, smoothening feathers over the damaged skin. “How does Beau sound?”

It will be some time still before Beau’s wing will heal and he can fly again. It will be some time still before Yuri can face Ashe again, and probably yet more time still before they can talk about Sunny’s ownership, though hopefully not divorced-couple style. It will be some time still before Yuri can return to Kanto and see Mother again, not just read her emails and texts and letters. It will be some time, still, before Yuri can become something truly himself—not a League Challenger who quit halfway, or a Rocket who never killed, but something entirely _Yuri._

The front door slams open, jarring Yuri out of his thoughts. “I am telling you, you _cannot_ just name a Scraggy _Zuru,_ ” Constance is berating, her Furfrou barking alongside her. “What will happen if you come across some other uncreative gangster in the underground matches? It would be beyond embarrassing! Beyond my wildest imagination!”

“Zuru is a _great_ name,” Balthus argues, followed by a little noise Yuri can’t quite distinguish. “See? He agrees! Come on, Hapi, back me up here.”

“She named her Flareon _Chilly,_ she has no room in this conversation!”

“Hello, Sable,” Hapi greets sedately, probably bending down to pet Sable on the head as per usual whenever she comes home. “Did anything interesting happen today?”

Yuri grins to himself. In the meantime, though, he’ll always have these idiots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah... they didn't kiss in this one... sorry yall..... i felt like developing their relationship that quickly would feel too forced/rushed and considering everything that's happened between our boys, they should probably take it slow LOL 😔 we get some flirting instead tho
> 
> \- the events of GSC/HGSS did happen 3 years after RBG/FRLG, so i'm not pulling the timeline out of my ass LOL  
> \- haven't totally fleshed out fbyleth's character yet, but she starts over with a new team with every region/league challenge she takes on (aside from her espurr), which might explain mr. chomp the totodile  
> \- the orange-haired girl with the ambipom is annette :)  
> \- [pokemon to real-world comparison](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:Pokemon-to-real-world.png); johto is based off the kansai region and sinnoh is based off hokkaido island, and according to google maps it would take est. 24 hours to get there. (by car, admittedly...)  
> \- whimsicott can [manipulate its body to pass through cracks, no matter how narrow](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Whimsicott_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#Biology)  
> \- why beau? if you noticed, sable, rou, and tremper (pre-rocket) are all from their french names (leclerc is a french surname) while lamia, mara, shiva, and khione (post-rocket) are gods & goddesses from various mythology (yuri means "light of god" in russian). beau is taken from honchkrow's french name, and i wanted to symbolize yuri finally letting go of & moving on from his past :")
> 
> complete pokemon teams (in order of when they were caught):
> 
> yuri  
> \- [sable](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sandslash_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (sandslash)  
> \- [rou](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Jigglypuff_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (jigglypuff; released)  
> \- [tremper](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Horsea_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (horsea; released)  
> \- [lamia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamia) (arbok)  
> \- [mara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_\(folklore\)) (crobat)  
> \- sunny (raichu) (still with ashe... for now)  
> \- [shiva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#In_contemporary_culture) (weavile)  
> \- [khione](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chione_\(daughter_of_Boreas\)) (froslass)  
> \- [beau](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Honchkrow_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (murkrow)
> 
> ashe  
> \- [archy](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Archy) (arcanine)  
> \- [mothra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra) (butterfree)  
> \- [showers](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Vaporeon_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (vaporeon)  
> \- [altair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair) (altaria)  
> \- [chilla](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Cinccino_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)#In_other_languages) (cinccino)  
> \- [saci](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saci_\(Brazilian_folklore\)) (whimsicott)
> 
> thank you very very much for reading this far!! it's probably really obvious, but i've been writing pokefic since i was like...single-digit years old, but i've always been too shy to share them online because, you know, cringe. especially pokemon CROSSOVERS, that's like DOUBLE cringe. but like, it's 2020, fuck cringe culture, if my irls see this and make fun of me they can kiss my ass xo
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading again, and thank you so much for the kind kudos & comments 💙💜 if you're into mlm byhardt, i have a pokemon AU in the works for them too! (though it probably won't see the light of day for a long long time lol)

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/featherxs)!


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